Fracture
by EightSixEightSeven
Summary: The Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria face both an enemy of the past and one of the future as a deadly time experiment threatens to destroy the universe...
1. Episode 1

"This is where the accident happened, sir," Commander Arnsell announced as he pressed the button to open the door. There was a loud irritated beep as the keypad attached by the security people to the door lock lit up and Arnsell entered his authorisation code. The keypad recognised his code and the door slid open.

"Accident?" Castellan Spandrell snapped the word – like a twig. "I do not think I like the way you use that word, Arnsell. Perhaps you should choose your terms more carefully."

Arnsell gave a weak smile. "Occurrence, Castellan," he said as he stepped into the room.

Spandrell nodded and followed him inside. "Yes," he said. "I find that much more suitable." He looked down at the body in the chair, slumped over the control desk. "This is the technician who was operating the transduction barriers at the time of the occurrence, yes?"

"It was," Arnsell nodded.

Carefully, Spandrell put his hand on the corpse's shoulder and lifted him gently up. The head lolled back lifelessly on a limp, almost boneless neck. The hair was white and falling out and the face was ancient, wizened and wrinkled, dark sunken eyes staring out of an expression locked in horror. "How old was he, Arnsell?"

"She, sir, was twenty-one," Arnsell replied. "And as yet had not regenerated once. She should have had hundreds of years left."

"But she looks as though she has aged to death," Spandrell murmured. He looked up. "Temporal energy," he said. "There must be a leak in here somewhere."

Arnsell almost choked. "But a burst of this magnitude? Inside the tower? That's not possible!"

"It must be, Arnsell," Spandrell barked as he marched back out. "No one dies of old age in the Capitol!"

**Doctor Who**

_**Fracture**_

****By Alex Lee Rankin****

**Episode I: **_**Caught Somewhere In Time**_

**BRISBANE, Australasia Major AD5029**

A cold sensation coursed like a sudden electric shock through Kara's body as she suddenly regained consciousness and she shuddered instinctively, more from the fear than the cold as she found herself alone in the dark. The nightmare had been long, deep and disturbing, but it had made for a short time a welcome refuge from the true horror of reality. Closing her eyes, even though in the lightless opacity that made no difference whatsoever, Kara wished for a moment that she could go back into the dream forever. But she knew this to be an irrational thought and opened her eyes again. And still she could see nothing. For the first time since she awoke she began to wonder where she was now. She wasn't in the detention cell anymore. Of that she was certain. The security guards had come in and given her the usual kicking, spat on her, pissed on her and then given her the injection that had made her pass out. They'd probably raped her while she was unconscious, but in her numbness and disorientation she couldn't be sure of any signs. It wasn't like they'd never raped her before, and on previous occasions they hadn't even knocked her out. She was bruised and naked and she stank. She wanted to get away from here. Wherever here was. Kara fought to recollect anything that might give her some idea about where she might be. She'd heard a couple of inmates talking in the shower block about the girl a few cells down from her. "Aislin's been taken," Bad Breath Beth had said. "I heard the Ministers had her drugged and dragged off last night. Probably for judgement." Well, she'd had it, then. Poor Aislin. Everybody who went away for judgement never came back, and there were plenty of stories about what happened to them. Kara didn't find it at all surprising that not one of those stories had a happy ending. The Ministers were cardinally sadistic, delighting in cruelty and torture. All the stories involved maiming, murdering or mutating – or all three. It was horrible, and Kara had sat up all night wondering what her poor dear little friend would be suffering. And then the guards had come for her.

That was it, then. Kara was in the Supreme Court of Judgement. The place no one ever came out of the way they went in. Slowly, she pulled her bruised knees painfully up to her cracked ribs. She placed a scratched hand flat on the freezing cold metal plate beneath her and pushed herself excruciatingly slowly up into a sitting position. She reached out tentatively and the tips of her fingers brushed against yet more smooth, cold metal. Her fingers closed around the slender pole and then she released it and moved her hand two inches to the left. An identical pole filled the space there. Back across to the right, past the first pole, was a third. It was reasonable, then, to suggest that she was on a circular platform, ringed in – effectively caged – by metal bars. Carefully, making a vain attempt to avoid discomfort and failing miserably, she gripped the bars and pulled herself up to her feet. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness and she could make out a few gaunt black shapes littered around the room that lay beyond the prison bars. "I'm awake," she shouted. "Can you hear me?" There was no reply beyond the resonant echo of her own Australian twang. "Come on you bastards! You think I'm afraid of you? Show yourselves!"

And the lights came on.

Kara screwed up her eyes in the brilliant glare and raised a battered arm to shield them. In the arm's subtle protection, she opened her eyes again and started to readjust before lowering her arm to her side. Still cold, naked, smelly and alone, she stood resolute and courageous, looking out at the room around her. It was a massive vault, like a cathedral nave only made of dark grey metal with no elegance or aesthetic charm whatever. The room was circular and domed, and directly in front of the cage, a few yards away, was a long metal bar with a round podium at each end. Each podium was lit from underneath, the soft white light glowing through the thick polyplexine. Flanking the cage on either side were two metal shutters set into the floor and behind the cage was a large metal bulkhead door. There was an identical door behind the bar, and this door opened. Two figures strode in, dressed in grey robes and each carrying a tall staff with a peculiar stylised emblem at its head. The figures moved silently and ponderously like machines to the centre of the bar and then split up, the man going to Kara's left and the woman to her right, each mounting a podium. As one they faced her. They seemed so synchronous in their ways, but in appearance nothing could set them further apart. The man was tall and skinny, with a thin, saggy face and thick white eyebrows. He looked incredibly old – too old really to be working – and his watery eyes looked weak with defeat, but from behind them somewhere Kara was sure she could detect the faintest trace of compassion. A rare commodity in the world today. Perhaps she could use it and give herself a chance. The woman was short and slim, and even in her robes easily flaunted the sumptuous curves of her hips, breasts and thighs. Her hair was long and black, flowing over her shoulders in a dark cascade, and her face was young and beautiful. And yet the cold, hard viciousness of her expression made her pretty features nothing more than a mask of evil. Kara could tell that this woman was eyeing her with absolute unmitigated contempt. The bulkhead door behind the bar slammed violently down and the woman raised her staff. "Let the jury rise!" she commanded, and the emblem atop her staff glowed brightly. The shutters in the floor rattled back and two curved platforms rose from underneath, locking into place either side of Kara's cage to form an arc of metal seats around her. The twelve seats were occupied by citizens, but every one of them was someone important. Civil servants, governors, administrators, but no farmers or factory workers. No one at all on that jury represented the common people. "You will stand for the Adjudicator," the woman called. Everyone in the jury stood up.

The old man raised his staff. "Let the Adjudicator descend," he croaked. He sounded as though the very essence of his soul had been beaten out of him. It probably had. His staff glowed too, and suddenly the whole dome of the vault split open. The two halves of the hemisphere receded until the roof was a simple circular opening, revealing the polluted red and purple streaked sky. The stifled sun blinked through in a deep pink, but in a moment a dark shape blotted it out. A black circle drifted through the sky and stopped just above the space behind the bar. It hovered for a moment, and then slowly descended into the room. As it came down, the dome leaves rose back up and the roof was resealed. The hoverdisc hung over the bar and Kara instantly recognised the man standing on it. At that moment all hope of reprieve or mercy was dashed from Kara's heart. The man on the floating dais was tall and muscular, with a handsome square-jawed face and a magnificent mane of red hair. He wore a breastplate and a long red cloak, a sword hung on his belt and a huge jewel around his neck. He looked every bit like any little girl might imagine the handsome prince from any fairy tale might look, but Kara knew that beyond the beauty lay a beast. The Adjudicator sat down on the special throne built into the surface of his hoverdisc and his hideous pet hopped up onto his arm. It was a repulsive thing, small and basically humanoid, like a child, but with grotesquely carved artificial features; the face of someone's perverted idea of a doll. It looked the very epitome of evil. The Adjudicator looked down in disgust at the naked figure of Kara. "The proceedings begin," he announced.

"Let the jury be seated in the presence of the Most High Lord Adjudicator, Magnus Greel," the old man creaked softly. The jury sat down.

Greel patted his filthy little pet on the head with a sort of twisted affection. It made Kara want to be sick. "And what is the name of this retrograde, Mr Sin?" he asked.

"This miserable parasite is called Kara Dagan, my Lord," Sin replied in a child's voice, slightly jerking his head. To Kara it seemed surreal, like one of those ancient ventriloquist acts from the history books. Also, there was a swine-like snorting and grunting noise between its words.

"And with what defilement of the Law has it been charged?" Greel went on. He called Kara 'it' rather than acknowledging her as a human being. No chance of a human rights point, then.

Mr Sin gave a snorting laugh. "Capital sedition, Master," he said. "She is a known leader of the rebel consortium that has been attacking our beloved and illustrious Alliance for the past twenty years.

Greel nodded. "Lady Prosecutor," he bellowed. "Present your case on the charge of sedition."

The evil-looking woman bowed her head slightly in acknowledgement and then addressed Kara. "Kara Dagan, you are hereby and in the full sight of a Minister of Justice, charged by the Supreme Court of Judgement under the aegis of the glorious Supreme Alliance with acts innumerable of sedition against the said Alliance. That you did intentionally commit such crimes against the state as instigating the closure of a number of poor camps and liberating the slave workers there, destroying two psychological correction centres and liberating their inmates, and murdering six of our government's Security Marshals. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"

"Not guilty," Kara replied with a voice like ice.

The jury members audibly gasped in unison. Greel piloted his disc forward and lowered it to hover right in front of Kara. "Do you deny that you carried out these vile acts?" he demanded. "Even though you know that your behaviour was recorded?"

"I deny no such thing," Kara snapped bitterly. "I deny the authority of this court. I deny the right of this system to persecute those who seek only freedom. And I deny the supremacy of your precious corrupt Alliance. I have freed millions of men, women and even children from your tyranny. I have cured the sick and fed the hungry instead of leaving them to die and just getting new slaves. I have helped to create liberty and choice in this world, away from the oppression of the Alliance. That is no crime and this is no justice!"

Greel threw a lever on his throne and in a second his disc shot back up to its position behind the bar. "You pathetic, idealistic fool," he laughed. "Have you any idea how many have come before me and used your very words, or very similar words, as a defence against this charge, or very similar charge? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? And of all of them, how many do you think I have acquitted, pardoned or forgiven?"

Kara knew the answer, but she was silent.

"None!" Greel hollered. "Not one single, solitary individual!" His voice dropped to a low hiss. "Have you been so naïve when you prepared your meaningless speech to think that I had not heard it all before?" He looked at the thing on his arm. "What shall we do with her, Mr Sin?"

Sin put his face to Greel's ear and cupped a hand over it in a disturbing parody of childish whispering and Greel smiled wickedly. He nodded and Sin looked over his shoulder at the old man. "Lord Defender," he squeaked. "Did you hear the admission of treason?"

The old Defender looked sad. "I did," he nodded. And he looked at Kara. "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do for you now."

"The jury is unnecessary and will be dismissed," Sin said. The jury vanished into the floor and the shutters closed.

"Thank you, Sin," said Greel. He hovered back down to Kara. "Of the charge of sedition it is the determination of this court that you, Kara Dagan, are guilty and without remorse," he announced loudly and dramatically. "Have you anything to say before you are sentenced?"

"My death will be avenged," Kara replied simply. "And you will be the one to suffer most."

Greel smiled. "Well then, I need not fear, as we do not intend to permit you the luxury of death. You are hereby sentenced on behalf of the Ministers of Justice to two-thirds physiological malconditionment. You will be transported from this, the Australasian Sector, to Great China, where you will be mutated by genetic modification into a bestial creature, and that creature delivered to the Alliance Citadel in Reykjavik and put to work as its guardian." He turned his head. "Release it, Sin."

Sin threw a lever on the throne and Kara felt the floor come from beneath her feet. She gripped the bars to stop herself falling, but Sin threw another switch and the electrical charge shocked her hands away, and she plunged down the chute to her fate.

One

There was a strange rumbling noise coming from under the floor. At first Victoria thought that it was thunder, but then she woke up properly and remembered where she was. The white walls with their odd but strangely comforting pattern of circles, the bedside table and dresser and the small chair surrounding the bed in which she slept. The warm, comforting bed she'd just been sleeping in until the noise that was so loud she could barely hear her own thoughts interrupted her. It was so warm, the huge eiderdown and the plush pillow so relaxing and comfortable. The noise was dying down and slowly fading, and Victoria was fading too as she sank down into the morass of feather-stuffed whiteness.

And the noise shocked her awake again.

Frowning, Victoria scrambled out of bed and jammed her feet into the ridiculous fluffy dog slippers that the Doctor had given her. He really did have some peculiar things in this place, she thought as she pulled off her collar-to-ankle nightdress and shuffled into the little bathroom area just off her bedroom. The noise was still grinding away as she showered, fading occasionally into silence but always coming back as loud as ever. Victoria picked up the hair-drying machine thing from the dresser and threw the switch. It exploded. She screamed and dropped it. She looked at her hand. It stung, but there was no burn. Sighing, Victoria rubbed her hair as best she could with a towel and dressed.

The door almost hit Jamie in the face as it flung itself open, but he jumped instinctively back just in time for it to miss his nose by just under half an inch before it banged against the wall of the corridor. Jamie strode into the console room, hands clamped over his ears, and looked around for the Doctor. But the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. Jamie looked around the console and suddenly something caught his eye. A pair of checked trousers protruded from the stem part of the console. Jamie crouched down and tugged at them. There was a thump and a cry of pain, and then the Doctor wriggled out from under the console. He frowned at Jamie, rolled out from under the console and picked himself up off the floor. Jamie stood up too, his hands back on his ears. "What's making all that noise?" he shouted as loudly as he could.

"What?" the Doctor shouted back, unable to comprehend him.

Jamie tried again, giving everything his lungs had. "What's making all that noise?" he bellowed.

And the noise stopped.

The Doctor smiled. "Now, what were you trying to say, Jamie?"

Jamie lowered his hands slowly and carefully, expecting the din to start again at any second. "What's making all that noise?" he asked for the third time. "And can you stop it?"

"It's all right," the Doctor assured him. "I think I have stopped it, at least for the time being." He turned to the console and twisted a few dials. "There was some sort of disturbance in the space-time vortex and we got caught up in it."

"Is that bad?" Jamie asked, not sure of some of the Doctor's meaning.

"Well, it's like a big wave at sea, Jamie," the Doctor said, simplifying his earlier explanation. "And we're, or rather the TARDIS is, a small fishing boat that's been hit by the wave and carried off course a bit."

Jamie snorted. "Och, and how much is a bit?"

"Oh, only about a hundred and thirty million miles," the Doctor said, flicking a couple of switches and deliberately avoiding looking at Jamie.

"Ah, well that's all right the…" Jamie stopped as it sank in. "What?"

The Doctor turned and looked at him sheepishly. "We've been kicked right across the galaxy," he admitted. "But there's nothing to worry about. I think it just knocked us in reverse and put us more-or-less back where we were when we took off."

"We're on the Earth, you mean?" Jamie was, for once, quite happy with the situation.

The Doctor nodded. "Quite close, yes. We're between the Earth and the Moon, so I'm going to land and recharge the TARDIS systems."

Jamie scowled. "Not on the Moon, I hope," he said stuffily. "Remember what happened last time."

"Earth was my first choice anyway, Jamie," the Doctor said, pulling a lever down. He checked the computer. "Oslo, 1967. That's nearest to our orbital position."

"What is?" a female voice asked.

The Doctor and Jamie turned toward the doorway. Victoria was standing by the door with her damp hair tied up in a ponytail and wearing a thick sweater, jeans and hillwalking boots. The Doctor beamed. "Norway," he told her. "Where we're about to land. And you're very suitably dressed for it I must say Victoria. What made you choose those particular clothes?"

Victoria shrugged. "I'm not sure. I was woken up by a noise and I just picked up the first thing I could find. But I did have a strange feeling that it was going to be a cold day."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow slowly. "Really?" He looked at the console. "Well, it looks like we've arrived." He switched on the scanner. Outside it was night and the rain was pouring down. "Raincoats and umbrellas, I think," he said, and trotted off to get them.

**OSLO, Norway AD1967**

The rain was hard and heavy and the wind was savage and cold. The darkness of the night wasn't much help either, and as she pulled up her collar and tugged her heavy mackintosh tight around her, Isgaard couldn't help wondering why the hell she'd let Aleks get her into this. The team had all begged and pleaded with her to take the mission, but it was Aleks who'd convinced her. He'd told her to get out there and make a heroine of herself, that she'd go down in history and be known as the great liberator of the common people. There would be so much honour and prestige coming her way. Not to mention the money. Although money wasn't the biggest deal for Isgaard, because her tastes and needs were simple, the fortune brought by her fame would pay for her special institutions for the poor to be set up. She could carry on being a heroine then, making new chances and new hope for the destitute and the forsaken on the streets of not only Scandinavia Major, but the whole world. The war had been going on for almost a century now, and for the first time in that dark age, hope stood a chance. Since the accident had given Aleks the Sight and he had started making predictions of the near future, everyone in the Faith had been filled with fresh optimism. The Promise, furthest into the future of all of Aleks's prophecies, was the one thing that everyone truly believed in, even if there were nothing else. And the fact that, so far, all of his other predictions had proven accurate very soon after he had made them just made people believe in him more. Since the accident he'd found himself unwittingly made head of a cult. Everyone looked to his predictions for hope, Isgaard included. She sloshed through the flooded streets, knowing that even her heavy boots wouldn't protect her and feeling the biting cold in her toes, until she made it to the source of the sound. The howl of the wind had softened just a little, but the other howling noise could be clearly heard. It started to fade and Isgaard broke into a run, desperate to make it before she lost her only guide. She caught a glimpse of something and hurled herself round a corner just as the sound mingled with the wind and was carried away, lost in it. She stopped dead. Someone was coming. Three figures in the distance, coming up the path and closing in on her. They'd spot her and then the mission would be compromised. Quickly she ducked back around the corner out of sight and then carefully peeped out, keeping undercover as the three raincoated figures holding umbrellas and muttering complaints about the weather shambled past her. Her heart fluttering and her eyes streaming, Isgaard marched on through the battering storm in the direction those three people had just come. She reached the kerb and stopped, staring across the road. It was right in front of her. "Oh my Stars," she whispered. "Aleksander be Praised, it's true!"

Keri pulled her head back inside and turned back to face her friend. "Have you seen it out there?" She half-closed her eyes and sighed as she noticed that, as usual, he was tinkering with the controls and not paying her the slightest attention. Annoyed, she marched past the console and pulled open the interior door.

Then he looked up. "What?" he said absently. And he blinked as her words sank in. "Oh right. Hang on." And he flicked a switch. The scanner came on, showing the image of a poorly lit street at night, streaming with heavy rainfall. He grimaced. "Ugh. No, it's not pleasant, is it?"

Keri groaned. "No, it isn't. And why do you never listen to what I say at the time I say it?"

"I do hear it at the time you say it," Aspirodor replied, "but if I'm concentrating on something else I let your words hover just outside the focus of my mind until it's clear. It's not dreadfully efficient but it helps me to think straight and you always get an answer. Can't complain really." And he switched the scanner off. "Fancy a walk?"

Keri pulled a face. "Not especially."

"Shame," Aspirodor said sadly. "Because you do know we have to."

Keri managed a smile. "I know. But we can't wait until it settles?"

"The rainstorm or the temporal turbulence?"

"Either. Or both."

"There's no guarantee that the temporal turbulence actually will die down. We could be trapped here, unable to re-enter the vortex, unless we can find the source of the disruption and block it." He flicked another few switches. "As for the rainstorm, we have to go out in that because we don't know how long we've got to take action. If we don't act soon, the damage to space-time could become permanent."

"Better get a coat, then," Keri nodded reluctantly.

"And a brolly," Aspirodor added. "And Wellingtons, galoshes or army boots. It's not that nice an evening."

"I noticed," Keri muttered.

Aspirodor finally left the console and walked over to Keri, taking both her hands in his as he reached her. He looked into her eyes and smiled. "Come on, Kerttu," he said softly. "It's only a drop of rain."

"The streets are rivers!" Keri chuckled at the trivialisation.

Aspirodor raised an eyebrow. "So much for optimism," he shrugged. "We've still got to go." He stepped through the interior door and opened the locker in the corridor wall. "What colour d'you fancy today?"

"A nice deep purple," Keri smiled.

Aspirodor grinned back.

"Nice place you've brought us to, Doctor!" Jamie spluttered as he, the Doctor and Victoria waded through the darkened streets. Around them, streetlamps were flickering and dying, beaten into submission by the weather. One lamppost had even been pulled over by the wind and now lay right across the road, blocking the access of any vehicles that might dare to try coming that way. There were no cars or vans moving on the road, and the few parked at the roadsides were immersed almost to their mudguards. Earlier Jamie had even seen one car, unmanned and empty, floating down the road like a fishing boat on the Firth of Forth. The rain was still pounding down all around them and the wind was howling. "Why did you have to land us right in the middle of this?"

"I didn't choose the location, Jamie," the Doctor protested. "And as far as I know this is all wrong. There were no floods this serious in Oslo in 1967. It really shouldn't be raining this heavily."

"Och, you've just got it wrong again," Jamie grunted. "That TARDIS is about as reliable as a horse with a wooden leg!"

"I assure you, Jamie, this is Oslo and this is 1967. When we passed that furniture shop with the broken window I looked inside and the calendar hanging behind the counter said August third, 1967 – in Norwegian."

"It looked very much like English to me," said Victoria.

"Well it will," the Doctor said. "You don't speak Norwegian, do you?"

Victoria gave him an odd look. "Of course not. Why should I?"

"No reason at all," the Doctor explained. "But because you don't, the TARDIS does it for you. In a way it's telepathic – it can speak to your mind – and anything you hear or read in a language that you don't understand will be translated into your first language before it actually reaches your plane of conscious thought. As well as that, it affects everyone you communicate with."

"So if the Norwegians don't speak English," Victoria worked out, "anything we say they'll hear in Norwegian."

"Precisely!" the Doctor said delightedly.

Jamie was just about getting it, and he looked oddly at the Doctor. "So you aren't speaking Gaelic, then?"

The Doctor nodded. "Quite right, Jamie. As long as the TARDIS is nearby you'll hear eighteenth century Scots Gaelic no matter what language we or anyone else speaks, unless of course you already understand the other language, then you don't need help."

"Aye, like Victoria. I understand her. She speaks English, like the Redcoats."

The Doctor was surprised. "You actually speak English?"

"Course I do," Jamie said a little hastily, seeming slightly affronted by the question. "We were taught it when we were hiding, just in case the Redcoats found us. That way we'd at least know what they were going to do with us if we got captured."

"We?" Victoria asked.

"Me and my family," Jamie said.

Victoria smiled. "I didn't know you had family."

Jamie shrugged. "Well, I don't now. Other than you."

"How sweet," Victoria simpered.

Jamie turned his attention to the Doctor. "Hey, Doctor?"

The Doctor looked round at him. "Hm?"

"What language do you speak?"

But the Doctor couldn't answer. And Jamie couldn't hear him. And Victoria couldn't see. And neither of them could breathe. They were on their backs under the water, kicking and writhing and fighting to get back up. It was freezing cold and Victoria thought her heart might stop. Jamie had cried out as he'd fallen and his lungs were full of water.

And the Doctor could feel a hand at his throat.

Two

**REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

The sky was different here, strange in a way after one had gotten used to living in the nine tenths of the world that were covered with polluted purple skies, and uncomfortable to look at. Well, during the day. But now the once stark white sky had turned to a murky grey with a few sparse patches of dull white showing through like patches of snow in a thaw that hadn't quite yet turned to slush. The temperature had dropped, as usual, and made 'the Coldest Place on Earth' a fraction colder as it reached about one eighth of a degree above zero. Even the sun had faded away as if hiding from the chill, and tiny snowflakes slowly and gently drifted to the ground. A few bare trees cast jet-black silhouettes against the whiteness surrounded them as the wind fought to sway their dried out, lifeless branches and a few bits of wrecked vehicles lay scattered around, long abandoned and rusting. Chloe Knight activated her sensor-protective forcefield and looked at the weather on the holograph screen of the hovertruck she was driving. It snowed practically every night in Reykjavik these days, but she wasn't usually out in it. As it happened, she was only out this time because the Ministers, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to change her work detail and put her on the supply run, collecting food, technology and other resources for the Citadel. For a while Chloe did wonder why they never built the landing port for the supply shuttle closer to the Citadel, and then she reminded herself of security and the fact that the Alliance had been having a lot of 'insurgent trouble' lately. It was likely that the port was put sixty kilometres outside Reykjavik so that terrorists and rebels would have further to travel and have a better chance of getting lost, exhausted or ambushed. Sensible enough, she thought, and at least she'd been able to get out of the Citadel before nightfall, when the weather was still bearable. Unfortunately there had been a few complications moving a particularly large case of medical supplies from the shuttle to the truck and she'd been late starting the journey back. But the snow wasn't quite a driving hazard yet and she was nearly home, so it wasn't that bad. Or it wouldn't have been if her ThermAd hadn't been packing up. It was her only source of warmth and she feared that if it finally shut down then she'd become a solid block of ice. The heat injectors were melting snow out in front of the vehicle to make sure the scanners didn't get clogged, and as she drew up to the gates of the imposing fortress Chloe let out a deep sigh of relief. A cluster of pink lights, just visible through the snow, blinked on in the distance and two figures in snow fatigues and masks ran toward the truck, brandishing beryllium pulse rifles. Chloe applied the brakes and the truck drew sensibly to a halt. She shut off the forcefield, turned up her ThermAd in the vain hope that it would help, and opened the window.

One of the men stuck a gun in her face. "State name and purpose of visit," he demanded.

Chloe scowled and Craig Heskith, who knew exactly who she was and what she was doing at the Citadel gates at this time of night. She'd partnered him when she was in the Security Detail. But that was it. Security. That was what it was all about, and having worked in the Security Detail, Chloe knew that at least as well as anyone. "Chloe Knight returning from special duties by order of the Administrator Marshal," she announced.

Heskith put out a hand. "Ident patch."

Chloe took a small crystal cylinder from her pocket and handed it to him. He inserted the top of it into a small square gadget on his belt, held the gadget up and peered at its screen through his goggles. Satisfied, he took the crystal out and handed it back, then ran down to the little security gatehouse. A moment later the pink lights turned blue. Chloe closed the window and fired up the engines again as the huge iron gats swung slowly open. As soon as the truck was over the boundary line, the guards reactivated the force shield dome and resealed the gates. Piloting the truck further into the grounds, she veered away from the Citadel itself toward the hovertruck docking area. When she reached it, she activated the shutter by remote control, waited for it to roll up and drove in. With the engine switched off and the gravity field slowly dispersing, the truck floated to the ground like one of the snowflakes outside. The shutter rattled down as Chloe flung open the door, switched off her ThermAd, pulled off her gloves and ran to the air heaters to warm her numb fingers.

"Cold outside?" the man behind her asked.

Chloe whirled round. A moment ago she'd been the only person in the vehicle bay, but now she found herself facing a tall, handsome man wearing a black suit with a white shirt and cravat, black boots, a long black overcoat and black gloves. And pointing a huge gun of no known design right at her. She went for her own weapon to defend herself, but a flash from the intruder's rifle sent the little STP spinning from her hand and wiped the freshly restored feeling back out of her fingers. "Shit," she hissed, wringing her shocked hand with her good one. She felt like she'd just been given an electric shock, which meant that the attachment on top of the gun barrel was probably configured to Sensory Trauma Projector standards. The barrel probably killed, though.

"Quite," the man said smoothly. He was English, and pretty posh by the sound of his voice. It was deep and husky, very manly and – if Chloe were honest with herself – attractive. And he looked pretty good too. He was white, but with a slightly dark complexion. His eyes were grey and watery and his square jaw bore a subtle five o'clock shadow. "Now please don't let's have anymore silliness, Miss Knight. It would be tragic if I should have to resort to measures more extreme than those to which I have already been forced."

Chloe glanced quickly to her left. The alarm panel was fifteen yards away and there was no way she'd reach it without this guy totalling her with that gun first. The path to her right was blocked by the truck. "Who are you," she demanded of him, hoping that if she kept him talking it might distract him long enough for one of the technicians or someone to come in and spot him and raise the alarm. "How did you get in here…"

"And what do I want?" the man concluded for her. "Well, I didn't come for the third degree. I need your help with a little enterprise I'm managing on behalf of the organisation I represent."

"You're an insurgent," Chloe said. "What makes you think I'll help you?"

The man shrugged. "The fact that I'll kill you if you don't. And not with this," he lifted the gun slightly in a gesture, but kept it trained on her. "That would be quick and painless, and we don't want that, now do we Chloe?" And he grinned wickedly.

Magnus Greel took the seat offered to him at the long dining table in the Great Hall of the Citadel and clasped his hands together on the table respectfully, looking around the table to each Minister in turn with a smile and a nod. In turn, the Ministers smiled and nodded graciously back and completed the ritual just in time for the Steward of the Hall to strike the gong. Once the gong had sounded, the Ministers engaged each other in polite conversation while the servants emerged from the kitchens and began to serve the food and drinks. No one ate or, drank, though. They were all still waiting. "Is the Administrator Marshal detained, Karl?" Greel asked of the Minister opposite him, a seat away from the head of the table.

Karl Klass nodded. He was the Marshal's aide and as such aware of all his movements. "There has been another incident in Australasia Major, Magnus. It's caused a lot of unrest."

Greel was annoyed. The Australasian Sector was under his jurisdiction and therefore it was up to him to keep everyone and everything in order there, but in the last decade or so there had been more insurgency in Australasia Major than in any other part of the world, and people were beginning to lose confidence in Greel. "Those insolent sewer-rats cause more chaos with every new day," he spat. "Will these dogs never come to heel?"

"Only if you command them to heel, Magnus," Klass replied firmly. "The Administrator Marshal has noticed that the Citizens of Australasia are out of control – your control. You were appointed to govern that sector, fully aware of the responsibilities of your duties, and now that our grip around it loosens the Alliance looks to blame you."

"Does the Marshal think me weak?" Greel demanded. "Unfit to carry out my duties?"

"As a Minister of Justice, no," Klass assured him, "but he seriously considers replacing you as a Sector Administrator. If you do not take this country you are expected to rule by the throat and shake the rebellion out of it then an investigation by Alliance Official Audit may be called for."

"AOA are welcome to come and kiss my…"

"You'll be suspended, Magnus," Klass whispered urgently but cautiously, making sure that the other Ministers wouldn't hear. "Stripped of all power and confined to the Oubliette. And while you're tucked away in the Ministerial Suite there, AOA won't be kissing anything. They'll be going through every file and record and sticky note you own, looking for flaws and holes and complications. And if they find any they'll tear you down and you'll be declared a Failure of the Alliance. You'll end up chained to the wall outside, a MalCon like all our other guard dogs. Do you want that?"

"Of course not. I want to be able to do my job and keep the System working the way it should, serving the Marshal, the Ministry and the Alliance together. It isn't my fault that those ungrateful bastards in the Civil and Domestic Units see fit to throw back in my face all the work I do to keep them washed, dressed and fed. It's my responsibility to govern them in a way that gives them all the economical stability they need, but it isn't my responsibility to accept their abuse when all I do isn't enough to satisfy their greed."

"And it isn't the Ministry's either. You were given a job to do, so do it. The Administrator Marshal never accepts failure, and neither does he allow the fact of overwhelming odds to excuse a lack of control."

"My control is not lacking!"

"Then don't let the insurgent scum get the better of you."

Greel was seething. "I need time."

Klass shook his head. "If it were up to me, you'd get it, but I'm afraid I'm the only one who's still got any faith in you." He sneakily popped a plum in his mouth from the bowl beside his plate. "Sort it out, Magnus. In the end it'll be you in the Reconditioning Labs if you don't."

The gong sounded again and all the Ministers looked up to where it hung at the top of the grand staircase. The Steward was standing beside it, holding the striker. "His Supremacy, the Administrator Marshal," he announced. Everyone rose from their chairs and stood straight with heads high and hands behind their backs. The main doors on the landing opened and the short, dark man strode in. There was no elegant armour or long cloak; he wore a perfectly ordinary dark blue suit and tie. His black hair was sleeked back with gel and his swarthy features made him look as rich in blood as he was in money. With a sharp-edged little smile, he trotted down the stairs and sat at the head of the table. "You may all be seated," he declared in a heavy South American accent.

Everyone sat down and Klass nodded to the newcomer. "Good evening, Supremacy."

"Thank you, Karl," said the Marshal. "I think it has been for me, but perhaps not so for some among us tonight." He looked accusingly at Greel, who did not speak. "You may begin."

The meal started proper then, with everyone tucking it to meat and vegetables and fruit of every variety from the splendid banqueting table. Rumour had it that this long table had actually once belonged to the Ancient English Royal Family centuries ago. It was certainly a magnificent antique. As they ate, the Ministers continued their discussions. "How are affairs in Australasia?" Klass asked the Marshal.

"Oh, Minor is fine," the Marshal said blithely. "But Australasia Major is slowly becoming an embarrassment that the Alliance can ill afford." He cast another glance at Greel.

Greel stood up. "Do not worry, Supremacy. I will teach those seditious vermin that prosperity comes with a price!" And he shoved the chair out of the way and marched toward the staircase.

"Magnus," Karl Klass called after him. "What about your dinner?"

"Save me some, Karl," he replied. "I have more pressing matters to attend to." On the way out he grabbed a serving girl by the wrist. She squeaked with pain and he softened his grip, but she still allowed him to drag her to his quarters, where he laid her on his large four-poster bed and lifted her skirts. After all, to refuse the request of a Minister was insurgency, and everyone knew what happened to rebels.

**OSLO, Norway AD1967**

"Don't manhandle him like that, you idiot!" Aleks shouted at the massive bear of a man clutching the Doctor's sodden collar and holding him, limp and unconscious by it. "You could kill him, and you know what that would mean."

"Sorry, Aleks," Disciple Schneider replied with a guilty look, altering his hold to grip the back of the collar and holding the inert, dangling Doctor by the scruff of his neck. "You really think he's it?"

"Issy does," Aleks said. "She's seen the Artefact." He looked round in the battering wind and rain to see if he could spot anyone on the team not doing anything. Two figures were sloshing toward him and he smiled. "Kirland, Michinov!" he shouted. "Any sign of Disciple Nystrom?"

"She's coming," Disciple Michinov shouted. "About a hundred yards behind us. Anything we can do?"

Aleks nodded as Kirland and Michinov reached him. "You, Pyotr, can go and help Joel get the rescues onto the ambulance and get them out of here." He looked at Kirland. "Ellie, can you get the ambulance back to Faith One and run the recovery procedure?"

Disciple Kirland nodded. "Sure. When will it arrive?"

"Couple of minutes. Wait for it here. Pyotr, with me." And Aleks strode off.

As they slugged through the drowning street, Pyotr looked at Aleks with concern. "Are you sure it's safe to use the ambulance in this zone?" he asked in a hushed voice. "What if they trace us?"

"They won't. I've arranged a distraction."

"What if it's spotted, then? This is 1967. Trucks still have wheels in this period."

"And every city has its strange phenomena, Pete. Once there was a story of it raining live frogs in Old America somewhere. Then there was that ancient sailing ship they found with a hot meal on the table and everyone missing with no explanation. And as for the so-called Bermuda Triangle…"

Pyotr smirked. "Documented throughout history with one massive secret irony," he said with relish. "The fact that we'd only ever discover the true nature of the Triangle by creating it ourselves."

"You're responsible for the Bermuda Triangle?" a surprised voice said from behind them. Both Pyotr and Aleks whirled round to find themselves facing one of the rescues – the little man with the amazing face. His black hair was soaking wet and sticking to his cheeks and forehead, his clothes were dripping and he looked a mess, but he seemed in perfect health.

Aleks was stunned. "How did you recover so quickly?"

"Respiratory bypass system," the little man replied. "And I'd really rather not explain. I think your remark about the Bermuda Triangle is much more interesting. Did you really create it?"

"Not us personally," Pyotr said. "The Alliance."

The little man raised an eyebrow. "And who are they when they're at home?"

Aleks looked at him with solemn eyes. "Are you a Time Agent?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I thought so. We're from the fifty-first. In our period the Supreme Icelandic Alliance rules over everything, except for Time and they're working on that. They're tyrants and the whole world's been living under a reign of terror for almost a hundred years. The Alliance was once the Democratic Electorate Alliance, a benevolent single government deputising for the world and making everyone healthy, wealthy and wise. In 4912 scientists found evidence of freak timeslips and someone actually came through one of these gaps in Time, materialising at the Alliance Citadel in Iceland. He became a steward to the Administrator General of the Alliance, who wasn't really a leader, more of an organising principle – an executor of the People's desires. The AG came to love the 'castaway' as they called him like a son, and when he died he left orders that his protégé would take over. But the protégé was corrupt and he quickly established a military state all over the world, changing his title to Administrator Marshal and effectively putting the world in chains. The whole human race amounts to masters and slaves now."

"Except for you," said the little man.

"We're outlaws. They call us insurgents, but we prefer the term libertarians."

"Or freedom fighters," Pyotr added. "They execute us for it, or worse."

"Worse?" asked the little man.

Aleks nodded gravely. "My ex-partner, Kara, was arrested on charges of sedition in Australia. They sent her to China and put her in a laboratory. The laboratory where they turn the innocent human beings who dare demand their freedom into horrific creatures…"

"MalCons," Pyotr continued with bile in his throat. "Once human, genetically corrupted and twisted into monsters with huge teeth and slavering jaws. Once created, they're put in chains outside the Citadel to be used as guards. They call them MalCons because of their policy that the malcontent should be malconditioned."

The little man's expression was one of horror. "But that's diabolical! It's the most amoral thing I've ever heard. We must stop this Administrator whoever-he-is!"

Aleks smiled. "We were hoping you'd say that. We want you and your friends to come with us to the fifty-first century and help us to tear the Supreme Alliance down. I know it's a lot to ask, but you're a Time Agent and we need someone with Time on his side."

"You still haven't told me about the Bermuda Triangle," the little man said, deciding caution to be the best option at present. "How did it come to exist?"

"It's the only stable terminal of the Zygma Beam," Pyotr said.

"Don't you mean Sigma?" the little man asked.

Aleks shook his head. "It's not light radiation, my friend. Research into the timeslips I mentioned brought about the discovery of chronozygotes – self-reproducing time cells – and experimentation proved that controlled superlucent emissions could actually adjust and readjust these cells, thus making limited Time travel possible. Zygma is a contraction of Zygote Manipulator."

The little man's jaw dropped. "But that's completely unstable! You can't trust that method!"

"We don't," said Aleks. "We're trying to stop the Alliance, remember?"

"If that's the only form of Time travel, how do you get Time Agents?"

"We thought you'd know. You are one, aren't you?"

"No."

Aleks's face fell. "Oh no. Then we're mistaken."

The little man shook his head. "No. I said I'm not a Time Agent, but I do travel in Time by a means other than Zygote Manipulation. I come from a pla… a culture that has perfected proper Time travelling facilities. This area of history isn't my speciality."

Aleks sighed heavily. "When the Zygma beam was first tested a few specialists were sent through with orders to alter history in favour of the Alliance. They never came back, but now and again one pops up. They seem to contain the necessary energy to conduct themselves from one period to another occasionally. You get good and bad ones. Most are still loyal to the Alliance. Where does your loyalty lie?"

"In justice, Mr…"

Aleks's face lit up. "I'm so glad to hear it." He firmly shook the little man's hand. "Nystrom. Aleksander Nystrom. And this is Pyotr Michinov."

The little man shook Michinov's hand. "How do you do," he smiled. "I'm the Doctor."

Pyotr gasped. "By the Promise…"

The Doctor frowned. "Pardon?"

"Do not concern yourself, Doctor," Aleks said. He was glowing. "All will be revealed. But first we must get you and your friends to our base and make sure you're healthy."

"Your base in the fifty-first century?"

"That's right."

"How do we get there?"

"We have access to the Zygma beam. Stolen. A necessary evil."

The pieces of the puzzle suddenly all came together inside the Doctor's mind. "But the connection is impossible to stabilise, isn't it?" he said confidently. "You haven't been able to disrupt Time without disrupting space and that's why Norway is flooded in 1967."

Aleks nodded. "Tragically, Doctor, that is true."

At that moment a long vehicle appeared around the corner at the end of the street. The Doctor beamed. The truck was hovering in the air, floating right over the waters of the flood. It floated gently to a halt and a side canopy rose up for a couple of men to load Jamie and Victoria inside.

And then the rain stopped.

**REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

The lights went out.

The Marshal looked up. "What's happened? Where is the power?"

Someone switched a scanning device on. Its tiny blue light flickered in the blackness. "Life support is still operational, Supremacy, but on Backup Battery Power only."

"Will the backup battery last?" the Marshal demanded.

"Only for sixteen hours," said Minister Airdrie. "After that we can all worry about freezing to death."

"Have you been able to trace the fault?"

Airdrie scanned a little further into the system. "That's odd."

"What is?"

"According to the checker, there is no fault."

"You mean it's been deactivated?"

"It does look that way, Supremacy."

The Marshal was frustrated. "Can you work out who it was from up here?"

The blue light flashed again. "Yes. There's a servo checker containing everybody's individual security code, and you need your code to shut it down." He scanned again. "Codes in this case belong to one C E Knight, one of our members of security staff."

"A member of our staff shutting our power down?" the Marshal spluttered. "Ridiculous!"

"The remote can't be wrong, Supremacy. No disrespect intended." And Airdrie switched the remote checker off. Then suddenly the door at the top of the stairs was blown wide open.

"So where the bloody hell's Paul?" the power room watch officer asked of her second-in-command.

Hartlin shrugged. "Haven't a clue, Lacey. Last I heard he went into main power core. The Marshal's got some crazy idea one of us shut it down."

Lacey raised an eyebrow. "Eh?"

"That's all I was told. The feed signature of one of our security ident patches was the last one saved in the user log, and it does record them all. No exceptions."

Lacey frowned. "Something's funny going on, isn't it?"

"Something always is," Hartlin answered.

"Not exactly an optimist, are you?" Lacey smirked humourlessly.

There was a bang and a flash. Something exploded above their heads. Lacey whirled round. The second flash caught her full in the face. She crumpled to the ground and Hartlin instinctively dropped, crouching beside her dead body. "Can't blame me," he muttered to himself.

The gunman ran across the dimly-lit landing, dodging blaster fire from the security guards called in the moment the Marshal realised there was an intruder and monkeying his way up the banister rails linking the staircases from landing to landing. The Marshal was fuming. He couldn't fathom how an intruder had actually managed to get into the Great Hall, but he knew that the insurgent must have stowed away on the supply shuttle the Marshal himself had also used to sneak to and from Australasia. He would have Magnus Greel's head on a spike for this. He shouted to his security guards. "Stop floundering, you stupid fools! Stop that intruder! Stop him and bring him to me alive. I want to see to it personally that he suffers the very worst tortures our society has to offer for this insult to the Supremacy!" Suddenly there was a blaster flash right next to him and he yelped and jumped back. Looking up to the stairs, he saw a shadow move and he pointed. "Up there, you nincompoops!" But of course, in the dark each guard had a different idea of where he meant. They all fired at once, but there were no hits. The intruder kept moving, occasionally stopping to release a volley of fire. He hauled himself onto the fourth landing, high above anyone else in the hall, and slipped a metal cylinder from his belt, twisting it hard. It clicked and there was a whistle of power-up, then he threw it down onto the landing. He flicked down the protective goggles at exactly the right moment. The flash grenade fired a second later, temporarily blinding everyone except its thrower. While the security guards were disorientated, the intruder took something else from his belt and used it. Once he had finished, he flipped a switch on his belt and, with the force shield dome powerless because Chloe had helped shut it down, the visitor transmatted easily away. A moment later, the lights came back on. There was a guard standing right under the intruder's last position, on the third landing. The Marshal shouted to him. "You, get up there and see what he's done."

The guard ran to the end of the landing, up the stairs and back to the centre of the fourth. "He's painted a message on the wall, Supremacy."

The Marshal was flabbergasted. "What does it say?"

As confused as everyone else, the guard read it out. "This spectacular distraction was brought to you by Valentine," he said, turning to look down at the Marshal. "Enjoy your evening."

The doors of the hovertruck sealed and Disciple Kirland fired up the engine. The Doctor rubbed his hands together as the thermal units inside initialised, feeding warm air into the cab. "Ah, that's much better," he smiled. "How are my companions doing?"

"They'll be fine," Kirland promised him with a caring smile, and he could tell instantly that she was the kind-natured sort who was probably a doctor or nurse – or even a charity worker. "We've put them into cell suspension for a moment, so they'll basically be in a perfectly safe controlled coma. They won't get any better that way, but they won't get any worse either and it'll buy time for us to get them to out hospital and make sure they're both perfectly well." She looked the Doctor up and down. He was still soaking wet. "Are you all right?"

"Perfectly, thank you," the Doctor nodded happily. "Please don't worry about me."

Kirland nodded. "Right." She glanced at Aleks. "We're ready to enter the beam. Issy still hasn't arrived, though. She must've been delayed."

"She'll have to wait until we come back, then," Aleks acknowledged. "Stand by." He touched the tips of his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes.

And a huge crack split in space itself, its brilliant light pouring out into the blackness of the Norwegian night. The Doctor gaped. "Opening a fracture in space-time by the power of thought," he breathed. "That's incredible… not to mention inexcusably dangerous."

"Please forgive us, Doctor," Aleks murmured without opening his eyes. "It is, as I said, a necessary evil."

Kirland navigated the truck into the heat of the fissure. There was a bright flash and then an explosion. The whole vehicle shook. The Doctor nearly banged his head on the dashboard. He dug in and looked at Kirland. "What just happened?"

"Warp field inversion!" Kirland shouted, checking her instruments. "We just crossed the path of another time ship."

And the Doctor realised the truth with horror. "You've collided with my TARDIS on the way here! You're entirely responsible for my being here in the first place. You stupid, idiotic nincompoops! Can you even imagine the paradox you almost created?"

"It's worse than that, Doctor," Aleks said solemnly, opening his eyes. "As your ship departed from the fissure its dematerialisation safety system sealed it automatically – and prematurely."

"Meaning?" the Doctor demanded.

Aleks's eyes were watering. "The back of the ambulance is still outside the fissure, Doctor," he whispered. "I'm afraid we've lost the children."

_**TO BE CONTINUED…**_


	2. Episode 2

**Episode II: **_**The Clairvoyant**_

**PEKING, China AD****1937**

"Get that thing under cover," Leung shouted furiously at the motley collection of grubby overalled workers milling around his yard. They started to come sluggishly to life as if they were sleepwalking, slow and somnolent as they lumbered toward the wrecked machine. "And call Min Yao immediately. She must be here to see the machine now that we have it."

"That will not be necessary, Leung-san," a high, soft voice said coolly from behind Leung. "I expected that you would be able to bring the machine today. The guards slept like children, did they not?"

Leung turned to look at the girl. She was tiny, maybe only four and a half feet tall, and her face was round with large eyes like a child's, though Min Yao would be twenty-six this winter. Her body was fully developed with a small waist and perfect round curves for hips. Her breasts were large and full, barely contained by her rich purple and silver silk cheongsam. Leung smiled awkwardly at her. "Min Yao," he said with evident surprise. "You came. But how can you know the guards at the factory were asleep? You could not have been there."

"Zhu-san was there," Min Yao smiled in an evidently vicious way. "He has a talent for encouraging sleep from the restless."

Leung nodded. "Not the only talent of his that disturbs me, madam," he said.

"The machine," Min Yao said, changing the subject deftly, casually and with total ease.

The men had taken it inside and Leung offered Min Yao his hand. She took it and he led her into the main workshop area of the factory. It was large and open-plan with several large machines built for a variety of purposes, some with robotic arms poised to do who knew what to some product or other on the factory line, some with conveyor belts to run products and parts along, but all inactive. The main workshop had been shut down. It had actually only just been shut down and all the original workers fired because Min Yao had other plans for the production lines. When the machine was working she would be able to set in motion her plan to refit the factories to make a very different kind of product…

Three

**OSLO, Norway AD1967**

The sky was bleak but a grand improvement on the night that passed slowly with the insipid tendrils of first light creeping across the lower stratosphere. The rain had stopped but the waters still ran in a torrent as the storm drains gorged on them, delivering the flood slowly but surely through the sewers to the Arctic Sea. For the ninth time since the journey from the TARDIS had begun, Keri was clinging to a lamppost, fighting to avoid being swept away. Aspirodor was behind the post, clutching her by the waist and keeping her steady. The wind was blowing Keri's sodden hair across her face and the freezing wind was sticking it there, adding the sharp snap of frostbite to her already mounting frustrations. "I think I liked it better when it was raining," she complained through gritted teeth.

"We have to get out of the water," Aspirodor said urgently. "The temperature's dropping at a fantastic rate and in less than an hour this river in the street will be frozen. If we don't find some high ground soon we'll be entombed."

"Well, if we let go of this post we'll be dragged down," Keri whined.

"I know that," Aspirodor replied, slightly annoyed. "But I've got an idea. I can feel the mooring of this post giving at the bottom near my feet. It should come out of the ground at any moment."

Keri cocked her head back to look up at him. "Is that a good thing?"

"Might be," Aspirodor answered. "If my idea works. Shift your weight over to your left."

Keri leaned to her left and hung on tight, watching with a mixture of horror and amazement as a huge chunk of ice floated past. It was three times the size of her body. In appearance it was broad and more-or-less flat, barring a few crags. "Look at that thing!" she exclaimed.

"I've seen it," said Aspirodor. "It's part of my idea. How good's your grip?"

An ear-splitting high-pitched creak ripped through the air and Keri shook, swallowing lungfuls of air all at once, as the lamppost was torn from the ground by the heavy current. "Oh, shit," she cried. "It's going!"

"Hold on!" Aspirodor yelled over the noise. Something snapped and Keri lost her footing. Her head went under the water and her life flashed before her eyes. And then in a moment she surfaced and she had a headache. Aspirodor was holding her by the hair. "Sorry Kerttu," he called. "Grab hold of the post, quick."

The lamppost was now leaning over at an angle, hovering diagonally over the flooded street, and Aspirodor had begun a Koala climb, his arms and legs wrapped around the post as he edged to the top. It shook and creaked precariously as Keri added her weight to it, pulling herself up and shivering more with the fear than the cold. In spite of her frostbitten fingers and numbing legs, she desperately swung up and adopted Aspirodor's motions, following him to the lamp part. By now, he'd made it to the top and had twisted around so that he mounted the post as though it were a horse. Reaching a hand back, he snatched Keri's and heaved her up beside him. Below, the huge chunk of ice floated right by the post and suddenly Keri realised Aspirodor's idea. "We're hitching a ride on the iceberg?" she stuttered.

"You ready?" Aspirodor grinned, lifting her spirits the merest fraction.

"Nope," Keri replied. "Never will be."

Aspirodor patted her head gently. "But you know we have to."

"Yeah," Keri nodded.

Together they jumped.

**REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

The scanning room was alive, bustling with activity as technicians and operators and supervisors checked and scanned and rechecked and rescanned and analysed and datalysed and programmed and reprogrammed and deprogrammed and engaged and disengaged. Computers flickered and bleeped and buzzed and twittered as scientists of every qualification ran diagnostic checks, programs and routines of every design and purpose. Administrative officers ran back and forth with data crystals and copypads on errands from one department to another and back again. And Magnus Greel stood right in the middle of it all, overseeing a highly specific operation. One of the senior technical supervisors stood beside him, making notes of his instructions on a copypad and giving orders to members of his team. Greel watched with amusement and slight satisfaction as his intended procedure was carried out. "Mr Moreson," he said to the supervisor at his side. "Has the servo pickup for the satellite registered yet?"

Guy Moreson nodded. "Yes, my Lord. We now have a bearing for you. Will you join us at the tracking console?" And he unfurled an arm to offer Greel a seat next to one of the scientists operating a nearby computer.

Greel marched over. "You sit in it," he snapped. "I'll get a better view of the screen over this technician's shoulder."

Moreson sat down and looked at the young woman operating the console. "Show the Minister the present bearing of the satellite," he ordered.

The technician ran the scanning beam and fed the pickup back through the computer. A holographic picture of Australia appeared in the visualiser. She checked the feed and compared the coordinates to those registered in the databank. "Australasia Major, my Lord," she announced. "Fourteen per cent refinement."

"Excellent," Greel flashed his teeth wickedly. "Go to fifty per cent."

"Specific target area, my Lord?" the technician asked.

Greel's finger stabbed at the hologram. "There."

The technician's fingers dashed across the console and in a moment the holographic image zoomed in on Brisbane. "Fifty per cent refinement confirmed, my Lord."

"Can you isolate the city?" Greel demanded.

"To within a yard, my Lord," the technician promised.

"Do it," Greel snapped. "Target the beam and lock it."

Moreson watched in horror as the young technician locked the targeting sensors of Magnus Greel's latest diabolical invention on the city where his wife and children lived. He dared not speak; dared not challenge Greel. He knew what would happen. He'd be declared an insurgent and sent of to the reconditioning laboratories, and then Greel would just do this anyway. His children were going to suffer a horrible death and he couldn't do a thing about it. The technician looked up from the computer. "Targeting sensors locked. We'll only lose about two per cent of the city – just the outskirts, really."

"That will be more than adequate," Greel laughed. "And the citizens of Brisbane were worried about the cyclone due next month!" Suddenly he was deadly serious. "Open fire."

There was a loud thud as the girl technician's unconscious body slumped to the floor and Greel was knocked back a few feet. He nearly staggered over, but caught himself in time to see Guy Moreson reaching for the console, surely about to hit the satellite emergency destruct button. Greel flung himself forward in a cannonball motion and grabbed Moreson by the throat, but Moreson slammed his elbow into Greel's stomach and winded him. Slightly disorientated but still stable, Greel pulled the technical supervisor away from the console and headlocked him with one arm, seizing the other by the wrist. He leaned forward, holding the helpless man in his grip and pushing his hand toward the firing button. "I will make you my own personal dog for this," Greel seethed. "After you have destroyed your home."

Moreson was weeping. "Jenna, Philip, Rosie," he sobbed. "I am so, so sorry my darlings."

Greel lurched forward and Moreson's hand made contact with the button.

**OSLO, Norway AD1967**

For a minute Victoria couldn't open her eyes and at first she feared that they had somehow been sealed shut, but with a little determination she cracked the thin film of hard material sticking her eyelashes together and opened her eyelids. She only realised it was ice when a sliver of it ran down her cheek like a frozen tear. Carefully she eased herself up, wincing and whining at the cracking, ripping sensation made by her frozen hair peeling away from her neck, and rolled off the couch she had found herself lying on. Jamie was lying opposite her, his kilt askew and for a moment Victoria closed her eyes again. "You really ought to wear something underneath, Jamie," she said through chattering teeth as she carefully felt along his legs until she gripped the material. She straightened the kilt and opened her eyes. He didn't look much better, but at least his appearance lay now within the expected standards of propriety. Carefully she nudged his shoulder. "Jamie," she called to him. "Jamie, wake up."

"Unhhh…" Jamie groaned. "Urrrhhh…" And slowly he rolled over. His face was frosted like hers. "Ma eyes won't open," he murmured. "I canna open ma eyes."

Victoria carefully rubbed the lashes on both Jamie's eyes between finger and thumb, melting the ice with body heat. "Try now."

Jamie's eyes opened and he almost shut them again at the sight of Victoria. Her face was almost milk white but for little red pockmarks of frostbite. Jamie shivered, realising why. He was used to the cold, being a Highlander, but even back home the weather wasn't like this. He scrambled up, yelping as his hair detached like Victoria's had before him, and managed a sitting position. "Where are we?"

Victoria looked around the cramped room they were in. There were metal walls and the two couches, a metal floor and a couple of cabinets set into the walls. There was a closed metal shutter at one end of the room and a wall of snow at the other. The room was narrow and about fifteen feet long. "I don't know, but we're snowed in."

"We might even be buried," Jamie said. He got to his feet and made for one of the wall cabinets, pulling it open. There were a few bottles of chemicals. "I think this is some sort of ambulance," he said, remembering some of the things the Doctor had taught him. "Like a sort of vehicle to take you to hospital where there are nurses to look after you on the way. These bottles are probably medicine."

Victoria looked at the shutter. "What do you think's through there?"

"Place where the driver sits," Jamie shrugged. "We'll try to get it open. This floor slopes upwards towards that door, so that end might be nearer the surface than here. It could be a way out." He made for the shutter and grouched at the bottom, trying to catch his fingers under it. The crack was too narrow, though, and he couldn't get any purchase. "Och, it's nae good hen."

"Really Jamie," Victoria huffed. "Must you speak in that awful mongrel dialect?"

"Are you going to complain all day or are you going to try and help?" Jamie said slowly, taking care with his pronunciation this time.

Victoria sighed. "I'm sorry. What can I do?"

"See if you can find something in that cupboard that we can shove under this door," Jamie suggested. "Maybe we can wedge it open enough for me to get my hand through."

Victoria nodded and started rummaging through the cupboard. Her stomach was rumbling and she was freezing to the bone. "Do you think we can get out?"

"I don't know," Jamie sighed. "But trying is better than sitting here waiting to starve to death."

"Or freeze to death," Victoria added.

Jamie nodded. "Aye."

**HELSINKI, Scandinavia Major AD5029**

"You stupid, irresponsible, incompetent children!" the Doctor shouted frustratedly at Aleks and his crew. "Didn't any of you bother to do any proper research on Time technology before you stole some? Didn't even one of you realise the potential danger of interfering with something as complicated as this?" He was literally hopping up and down with rage.

Aleks lowered his head solemnly. "Of course we realised, Doctor," he said. "But we had to steal it in spite of the risk, because any changes we might make would be far better for everyone than all the destruction and suffering caused by the Alliance. And we didn't have time to do that much research before we stole it, although our best people are working on it now to perfect it."

"Don't you think that's rather closing the gate after the horse has bolted?" the Doctor retorted sharply. "You've killed my companions with your stupidity and recklessness."

Pyotr shook his head. "Not necessarily, Doctor. They may not have been killed when the van broke up. We have had this happen a couple of times during the first few trips we did when we were just testing it and when we went back the bits we left behind were intact up to where they were torn from the bits that got through."

The Doctor wrung his hands awkwardly. "Well, if there's even the vaguest chance they've survived I must go back for them."

Aleks shook his head. "You can't do that, Doctor. We need you here."

"I believe it is up to me where I go!" the Doctor snapped.

"That's true," said Kirland. "You're no prisoner, but you are our only hope of beating the Alliance."

"Please, Doctor," Aleks begged. "Isgaard, my sister, is still in Oslo 1967. We can contact her and order her to try and rescue the children. But if we do, you must help us. It's a fair exchange – our favours for yours."

The Doctor looked one by one at the members of the team. Their eyes were pleading and somehow, for some reason he could not yet fathom, the Doctor could see a spark of faith. They truly believed in him. For once it came to the Doctor that to accept the offered terms was probably the best option. "All right," he said. "I'll help you if I can. Do your best for my friends."

"You have our word," said Aleks. He turned to Kirland. "Ellie, get on the tracker and call Issy. Instruct her when she arrives at the exit to try and get those kids free and bring them through."

Kirland nodded and was gone. Pyotr looked at Aleks. "Right, let's get him back to Faith One as swiftly as possible. The sooner the Promise is fulfilled the better."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "The Promise?"

But his question went unanswered. A young woman interrupted the discussion as she ran down the road and almost collided with Aleks. Aleks grabbed her by the arm and shook her still. She was panting for breath. "Helen, what is it?" he demanded.

Helen Faulkner swallowed down a breath. "Greel…" she panted. "Greel's…"

"What?" Aleks snapped. "Steel yourself, woman! What's Greel done?"

"The Zygma Beam…" Helen gasped. "Used it as… a weapon. Brisbane."

Pyotr grabbed Helen's shoulder. "Brisbane?"

"Destroyed," Helen spluttered. "Everyone aged to death… No survivors."

Four

**DRESDEN, Germany 2014**

A large crowd gathered at the end of the street, a heavy murmur of excitement sweeping through it like waves at sea as the people looked down at the sight that lay before them. The crater was almost a kilometre wide, round and deep and filled with smoke and patches of fire. The ground was charred and blackened, most of the soil dehydrated to ash, and the surrounding grass flattened and scorched. And right in the middle of it lay a football. Just a football, nothing else. There were no signs of damage to the ball, in fact it looked brand new, and it didn't seem to be affected by the fire or the apparent explosion that had caused it. People had been on the move all night, closing in on the site and gathering around it together from the moment the news had reached them that there had been an unexplained crash. There were police all over the place already, but they weren't able to keep the spectators out and the army had been called. They were taking their time arriving though. Problems of their own, it had been said. There were a couple of cries of "Eine fussball!" followed by laughter at the surreal quality of the spectacle. Lots of people were chatting excitedly, but there was no rioting and as far as could be seen no one doing any harm or endangering themselves by sneaking down into the pit to try and get the ball as a souvenir. A few police had even stopped working and started coming up with silly stories about how the ball might have come to be in the pit, although no hypotheses regarding the existence of the pit itself were forthcoming.

And then the noise sounded. A raucous trumpeting sound like a hundred thousand constipated elephants chorusing as they fought in unison for relief. It howled and parped like a bad orchestra until suddenly, to the amazement of the spectators, the football was engulfed by the slowly coalescing and solidifying shape of a large stone gargoyle. Eventually the sound stopped and the gargoyle now sat in place of the ball, and as the crowd watched in fascination it began to physically melt, the details and features twisting out of shape, the colours melting into and out of one another and the whole shape of the object changing. Everyone seemed to blink in the same moment as the gargoyle ceased to be, replaced by a huge round boulder, grey and brown with burnt black patches. And as if that weren't enough, the rock split open and a funny little man came out, dressed in a monk's habit and clasping the ball. His humorous-featured face was alight with mischief as he smiled at the little ball. The crowd threw up a fantastic cry of amazement and the little monk looked up, raising the ball above his head. "Well, that's clobbered Germany's chances of winning the World Cup, eh?" he laughed.

And he received a round of magnificent applause.

**OSLO, Norway AD1967**

"This is crazy!" Keri shouted over the whoosh of the waves and the crack of ice around her as the huge frozen surfboard sped through the rapids filling the Norwegian streets. "We're gonna crash any minute and be smashed up completely!"

But Aspirodor was laughing. "The iceboard will crash, Keri," he said with delight. "We won't. We'll have long since jumped off by then. Look out ahead there, a little over to the right."

Keri looked and for the first time since she had left the TARDIS she smiled. "Is that snow?"

"Miles of it," Aspirodor answered. "And we'll pass within a few feet of it. The jump will be a piece of cake. No trouble at all."

"I could just like a cake right now," Keri grumbled. "And a nice cup of tea."

Aspirodor ruffled her hair. "I know. Don't worry, as soon as we find an abandoned restaurant or pub I'll see if I can scavenge enough bits and pieces to knock up a campfire and make you some brandy snaps."

"I feel better already," Keri smiled, doing her best to be positive. The huge chunk of ice swept down toward the snowy hillside ahead and Aspirodor snatched Keri's hand. She braced herself, knowing that the jump was seconds away.

Jamie slipped the skein dhu back into his sock after his thirteenth attempt to get the door open, sank onto the couch he'd been resting on and looked up sadly at Victoria. "Still no good. It goes under but doesnae make anything move," he said. "Is there nothing else in here?"

Victoria looked in the cupboards again. Apart from the medicine bottles they were empty. "That's all," she shrugged.

"Ach, I wish Poll were here," Jamie grunted.

"Poll?"

"Aye. She used to come travelling with me and the Doctor in the TARDIS. There was a nice laddie called Ben with us then as well. Poll would've done something with those bottles that might've got us out."

"How d'you mean?"

"She knew about chemicals and stuff. She wasn't a scientist, but she once made up this Polly-cocktail thing out of stuff in bottles just like that and it melted right through Cybermen. It would've made soup of this door."

"My father was a scientist," Victoria mused, taking some of the bottles down. "I remember some things. There are some chemicals that he called 'flammable' – which means they catch fire." Carefully she examined some of the bottles. "This one. I think it's a flammable substance." She leaned over Jamie to look at the junk on the couch. "Pass me some of that bandage, please."

Jamie picked up a roll of white bandage and handed it to Victoria. "Are you gonna burn the door down?"

Victoria shook her head as she unscrewed the cap of the bottle and stuffed a chunk of bandage in. "That's metal. It won't burn down, but a small explosion might damage the lock that's holding it shut."

"Won't we get showered with glass?"

Victoria bit her lip. "I hadn't though of that."

Jamie looked around. "Hold on," he said, grabbing a blanket from Victoria's couch. "If we sit against the snow wall and cover ourselves with this we should be alright."

"Right then," Victoria said decisively, holding up the bottle. "Now to light it."

Jamie looked blankly at her. "How do we do that?"

"Understood," Isgaard said into her TLC unit. "I'm just outside their position. Did you get the other member?"

"We did," Eleanor replied and Isgaard could hear the smile in her voice. "Issy, it _is_ the Doctor."

"By the Promise," Isgaard gasped. "It's true."

"So far Aleks's every prediction has been one hundred per cent reliable. And you know what that means."

"That we really will destroy the Alliance and Greel will vanish in a howling storm, I know. I can barely believe it."

"Issy, why didn't you make it to the rendezvous on time?"

"I got swept up by the current. Travelled backwards to more-or-less where I started in a tenth of the time the original journey took and I had to start again. I'm only glad it's stopped raining and started snowing. At least the bloody snow keeps still."

There was a soft laugh. "Well I'm gonna have to sign off now, because we have duties as you know. Try and free those kids for Aleks. You know how important it is."

"Yeah I know. Nystrom offline." And she shut off her TLC. She looked out across the expanse of white. The snow wasn't too thick or heavy, but the dots of white patterned the atmosphere enough to cloud her vision to the point of slight irritation. Quickly she unpacked her goggles and put them on. The refined scanning beam picked easily through the snow, but still she couldn't see the truck. "Must've been buried," she murmured. "Bugger."

"Language," said a girl's voice and Issy whirled round, instinctively going for her blaster. She found herself facing a small girl, smaller even than Isgaard herself, with red hair frozen to her flesh, large green eyes and a tiny button nose. She wore a long purple dress and a sort of cloak over it.

"Who the hell are you?" Isgaard demanded. The girl sounded Finnish. Finland had become the power base of the rebellion and few Finns existed who weren't citizens of Faith One in Helsinki, Faith Two in Jarvenpaa or Faith Three in Kemi. "The city was evacuated. What are civilians doing here?"

"I'd put that down if I were you," said a man behind Issy, and somehow she knew she there was a gun pointed right between her shoulder blades. "Slowly and cautiously."

"Drop your gun or I kill her," Isgaard snapped.

"You kill her, I kill you," the man's voice answered simply. "That bluff would cost too much."

Isgaard's gun hit the snow. "Yeah, but it was worth a try."

"Hold still," said the man. "I need to scan you."

Isgaard was surprised. "Scan me?" She heard a mechanical chittering sound close to her back and then saw a little black gadget fly over her shoulder for the girl in front of her to catch.

The girl looked at the gadget and her eyes widened. "Chronons?"

"Near enough," said the man. "Turn round."

Isgaard turned slowly to face him. He was indeed pointing a gun at her, but it was more sophisticated even than hers. The man was tall and had quite a build. His hair was long and dark brown and he had a small dark beard. His eyes were deep-set, large and grey and he had a very pronounced forehead. He wore a black scarf, black overcoat, black slacks, black boots and black gloves. Even the huge pulse rifle he carried was black. "You're Time travellers," Isgaard said.

"And not the only ones on this hillside either," the man said. "You wanted to know who we were. The young lady standing behind you is Keri Kalonen and I am simply known as Aspirodor."

"I'm Isgaard Nystrom," Isgaard stammered. "You can call me Issy."

Aspirodor lowered his gun. "Now we're all friends, do you want to explain to me what a woman with fifty-first century scanning goggles and weaponry is doing in 1967? And why you and the people with whom you associate are shredding the fabric of space-time like so much discarded bog roll?"

"It's not us," Isgaard said. "My people are trying to stop it."

"Really?" Keri asked.

Isgaard nodded. "I swear. You can help, if you want to. Come and meet our leader. He needs people like you."

"And by 'people like us' I imagine you mean people who know their Time travel rather than the amateurs responsible for this preposterous cockup?" Aspirodor mused.

"Exactly," Isgaard nodded.

"Splendid," Aspirodor beamed, hanging his rifle back on his belt under the overcoat he wore. "Lead on, MacDuff!" he boomed.

"Pardon?" Isgaard asked.

"Euphemism," Keri smiled. "He's a bit nuts. He means, uh…"

Aspirodor clasped his hands together in excitement, grinning all over his face. "Go on, Keri! I dare you to say it!"

Keri smiled awkwardly at Isgaard. "Take me to your leader," she said.

Isgaard smiled back. "I think I'd better."

And then there was a soft bang like a firework inside a dog kennel. Keri jumped as the ground shook slightly beneath her. "_Vittu helve_!"

"Language," Isgaard said. Keri was definitely a Finn.

Aspirodor was on all fours, scrabbling at the snow like a dog digging up a bone. "There's something under here. Come on, help me." The others joined in, crouching in the snow and hurling huge chunks of it aside. Soon they had revealed the corner of something metal. Aspirodor pulled another chunk of snow cleared, revealing a little dark hole and suddenly a ghastly smell hit him and he gagged. "Eyes of Rassilon!" he spluttered. "Has somebody been blowing up bottles of antiseptic?"

"Aye," said a Scots voice from inside. "It didna work though."

**PEKING, China AD****1937**

Dr Zhu smiled with great satisfaction as he examined Min Yao's machine. It was all glass tubing and stainless metal surfaces glinting and gleaming in the dim blue light of the main factory floor, now especially darkened to aid the conditions. Two major cables linked to the upper column of the huge apparatus ran down into the darkness and out of sight. Even Min Yao did not know what they were for, but Zhu had insisted upon their use, claiming it to be an essential part of the project. "This is most excellent, Min Yao," he nodded enthusiastically, giving his protégé a charming but strangely sinister smile. "The refinement of the inversion flux compensator is first class. How you learned so quickly I'll never know. You have the makings of a magnificent temporal engineer."

Min Yao beamed at Dr Zhu. "Thank you, master," she said graciously. "You over-compliment me." As Leung watched, it was clear for all to see that she adored the strange dark man, although the reason why she felt this way remained a mystery. Dr Zhu was not even Chinese, he was a foreigner. Not a gwailo – too swarthy for that – and he had used the name of Zhu for his own purposes. No one even knew who he really was. Given sudden enthusiasm by the general atmosphere of admiration and devotion, Leung decided it was time to get the facts. He strode over to Dr Zhu.

Zhu turned to face Leung before they were even three feet from one another, as though he sensed him. "Is there something I can do for you, Leung-san?" He asked smoothly. He had a European accent, but that beard and those eyes made him look like more of an Arab. Maybe he was a member of one of those families of Arabs that lived in London.

Leung stood still where he was, not daring to come closer. Something about Zhu was imposing. "Dr Zhu," he said nervously. "I have questions. We all have questions."

"Everyone has questions," Zhu smiled, and the smile seemed dangerous, as though he drew a sword from his lips. "I am here to answer them. With my help, you can unlock the inner secrets of Time."

"We have other questions, Zhu-san," Leung persisted. "Questions about you. We know nothing of who you are. You look like an Arab and speak perfect Cantonese and Mandarin in an English accent. You assume a Chinese name even though you are not one of us, and we know this, and you know we know this. You guard your secrets in the strangest way."

Zhu stalked toward him like a cat stalking its prey, and Leung felt just like he imagined a mouse might feel in the same situation. "And with all the help I give you, you do not even consider my one request, that I reserve the right to conceal my identity?"

Shivering, Leung forced himself to answer. "We can think of only one reason why you would do this. You are a criminal, Zhu-san. You do not want to be discovered and stopped in whatever diabolical scheme you have created, enslaving Min Yao in the process."

Zhu smiled wickedly. "Oh, so that's it, is it? Min Yao. Things have changed between you and she since I came along, haven't they? You were to be married…"

"And now she loves only you," Leung spat, his anger sparking courage. "You steal her from me!"

"She came by choice, Leung-san. I did not force her."

"You lie! You trap her with promises of money and power, and she does everything you say as though she is mesmerised, and you are a snake, winding your coils around her. But there are more important things. If police find you here, they arrest all of us. I will not go to jail for you."

"And how will you prevent that?"

"I will go to police," Leung shouted. "I will tell them everything!"

Zhu shrugged. "And I will leave and take Min Yao with me. We will get away and you will never see her again. Besides, unless you can tell them who they're dealing with, the police will simply think you're mad."

"I demand to know who you are," Leung growled, locking eyes with Zhu.

Zhu stared deeply into Leung's eyes, into Leung's head, his brain… his soul. Leung was lost. He couldn't remember his name. He couldn't remember if he'd even had an identity. And he couldn't remember what the argument was about. And he couldn't remember having an argument. All he could remember were Zhu's words in reply to his demand, and that he must abide by them. "I am the Master," Zhu had replied. "And you will obey me."

For the first time in recorded history, the Capitol was in darkness. The walkway lights had flickered for the past couple of hours and then finally given out about twenty minutes ago; the heliosynthetic units in main areas like the Panopticon and the chambers of the High Council had also failed not very long ago; even the lights on computer terminals and communications screens seemed to be on flat batteries. Figures moved in the dark carrying small hand-lights powered by emergency cells that had been charged with stasar fire. It wasn't exactly a stable method, but in the absence of a precedent for this set of circumstances the unsafe option stood to be the only option. The heating units were down too, and the cold was getting in from the wastelands outside. And the transduction barriers were down. Gallifrey was, at this point, prey to any Sontaran War Wheel or Dalek Killcruiser that might just happen to be passing. As he chewed over that thought, Castellan Spandrell wondered if any of those other races capable of sloppy Time travel might actually be in a position to pass by – or indeed if they might be crippled themselves by exactly the same effect that was practically dismantling Gallifrey. Scans had been taken of the vortex up until blackout, and places like the Hectomatriarchy of the Monan Host, the Sontaran System, Skaro and all of the other Time travelling planets didn't seem to be responsible for the problem. To everyone's surprise and horror, the problem seemed to originate from some obscure Level Five world in the Mutters Spiral. That meant yet another newborn civilisation of vortex-wanderers that the Celestial Intervention Agency would be off to poke their noses into. The CIA always insisted on knowing how their counterparts were doing in order to make sure that Gallifrey was always doing better. Spandrell felt sure that it would one day be the death of them – and everybody else on this world. Someone edged past him, accidentally flashing a light in his face. He winced and the owner apologised. "Oh, I'm sorry Castellan," the guard said. "I'm just on my way to make a report to the Council."

Spandrell shook his head and sighed. "Oh, that's all right, Mr…"

"Hildred, sir," the guard said. "Guard-Lieutenant Hildred."

"Thank you, Hildred," Spandrell said. "I suggest you attend to your duties."

Hildred turned and vanished into the shadows from which he came. Spandrell watched him go, sure that the clumsy boy would come to a sticky end one day if he wasn't careful.

"Earth?" Co-ordinator Vansell repeated the name he had been given with poorly covered stupefaction. "That silly little planet on the other side of the Goloan Cluster? Are you sure?"

Lieutenant Hildred handed him the last file the scans had managed to get printed before the systems had failed. "It's all here, Co-ordinator. The last scan we took led us straight back to the Sol System. There's a massive temporal fracture absorbing every bit of energy we have. It's probably affected the other Time travelling races too."

The Co-ordinator bit his hip. "Hence why the Daleks haven't taken any pot shots at us. They must know we're down, but they're probably in the same situation as we are." He looked at the tall silhouette of the President. "My Lord, I do feel we should act."

The President shook his head slowly, barely visible in the gloom. "You know the situation, Vansell," he tutted. "Even the Celestial Intervention Agency is not above the law. We cannot be seen to act."

"Perhaps not," Vansell replied. "But what if we could act indirectly, in such a way that no one could point fingers at us if anything went wrong?"

"And how would you achieve that?"

"Renegades, my Lord."

"Renegades?"

Vansell nodded enthusiastically. "There are a number of former Time Lords, people who have become disillusioned with our way of life. They deregistered TT capsules and stole them, taking them off into other times and places. As such, they deny having anything to do with us."

"And if we enlist their help," the President concluded, "we can just as easily deny having anything to do with them."

"Precisely, my Lord," Vansell agreed.

The President was quiet for a moment, lost in thought. "Very well," he said finally. "Contact them. I'll leave it in your hands, but remember that I _do_ know who is responsible if this doesn't work."

Vansell turned and rushed from the room, dragging Hildred with him.

**DRESDEN, Germany 2014**

Mortimus sat glumly in his cell, the football around which he had materialised his TARDIS lying at his feet, bloated, dented and deflated, and his chin in his hands. His expression was more one brought about by the tedium of a long wait than the misery of the solitude and the prospect of longer-term imprisonment. He knew very well he'd be getting out soon, but he just couldn't stand waiting. The police had charged into the pit and accosted him the moment he'd stepped out of his ship, probably pissed off by that remark about the World Cup. Some people, Mortimus decided, just couldn't get over their petty obsessions. Merely for the sake of a little respite from staring at the dreary walls of the cell, he picked up the cup of tepid tea that he had been given a couple of minutes ago and finished it, grimacing at its coldness and lack of taste as it went down. He softly kicked the battered ball into the corner of the cell and leaned back on the little bed-bench while he waited. He was just dozing, half in and half out of sleep when the loud clack of the cell hatch being opened shook him into full consciousness. The looked up hopefully as the door swung open, but his face fell as a uniformed soldier walked in. The army had probably declared him an alien threat or something and come to cart him off somewhere. That would well and truly balls things up, he thought, if Valentine finally did get here after he had gone. "Well," he demanded of the military sergeant. "What do you want?"

Feldwebel Schneider offered his hand. "We would like to apologise on behalf of the police and our government, Ambassador," he said fawningly. "Your secretary has explained everything. We had no idea that the Church had such resources to invest in technology, and all for the benefit of society too. We are impressed."

Coming into his element, Mortimus stood up and shook the sergeant's hand. "Well, thank you very much, Feldwebel," he said enthusiastically. "You know, all the self-denial in my order means we save huge amounts of money, which can then be put into the furthering of Man's achievements." He decided not to embellish further, because Valentine had obviously told this man a story already and he didn't want any confliction between the versions of events. As it was, he was already playing by ear.

Schneider nodded. "Indeed. Now perhaps you will allow me to show you out?"

Mortimus grinned in agreement and followed Schneider out of the cell and into the corridor. He was let up to the reception area of the police station, where a huge man in dark clothes waited for him. Mortimus was pleased to see Valentine again, but not pleased that he wasn't alone this time. Standing beside the dark man was a young woman, small and slight with a heart-shaped face, soft features and straight red hair tied in a ponytail. Her eyes were ice blue and she wasn't a bad looking bit, but she still shouldn't have been there. In Mortimus's experience, women got in the way of everything. The dark man strode up to Mortimus and smiled warmly. "Brother Ambassador," he said in a welcoming voice. "We're so glad you are well. You shouldn't have offered to test the machine for the laboratories. You might have been killed."

"Oh, you know me," Mortimus shrugged with a chuckle. "Anything for the good of humanity!"

"How noble," the man smiled. "And by the way, allow me to introduce the new liaison between the research and development department and the Order, Miss Chloe Knight." And he indicated the bit of stuff with the copper top.

Mortimus waddled over to her and took her hand. "How nice to meet you my dear," he beamed, kissing her knuckles and squeezing her fingers gleefully.

Chloe suddenly felt that this weird little monk was undressing her with his eyes, and by then she had already guessed that he was about as much a man of the cloth as the obviously mercenary Valentine was. She gently pulled her hand away. "It's a pleasure, Brother Ambassador," she smiled, adding under her breath, "but if you try anything, you little pervert, I'll poke your eyes out."

Mortimus's face went ashen and he backed discreetly away a step, turning to look once again at Valentine. "Well, we'd better get on. What's our next port of call?"

"Well, we've had the machine collected and brought here," Valentine said, "so we'll take her back now."

Mortimus nodded. "Right, let's get going, shall we?" And the three of them left the police station.

Feldwebel Schneider watched them go and turned to a constable on the reception desk. "These Monks," he said, "they are strange people."

The constable shrugged. "Not just the Monks, Feldwebel," he smiled. "All of the English are crazy."

They were barely a hundred yards from the police station when the shouting started, and Valentine was chiding himself for having not expected it to happen. Anyone who knew Mortimus should also know that to bring a pretty young girl before his lusty eyes was a very, very bad idea. And of course, acting as the victim as usual, it was Mortimus who shouted the loudest. "Don't talk to me like that, you cheeky young bint!" he was yelling into Chloe's face. "I've half a mind to put you across my knee!"

"You try it and you'll have half a scrotum as well, you dirty old bastard!" Chloe replied.

Valentine rounded on both of them. "Now that is enough!" he snapped. "The pair of you are behaving like children. Now we have a job to do and we're not going to achieve it by bickering, now are we?"

Mortimus folded his arms petulantly and snorted into the air. "Well, she started it," he grunted.

"He was trying to get in my knickers!" Chloe protested.

"Ha!" Mortimus retorted. "I'd need a bloody acetylene torch to get them off, you frigid little…"

Valentine grabbed them both by a shoulder. "Again," he growled, "I command the both of you, desist!" he growled and they both fell silent. Then, more quietly and calmly, he addressed Mortimus. "Mortimus, Chloe is not attracted to you and she is not frigid either. She happens to be sleeping with me."

Mortimus went white, realising his error, and turned to smile sheepishly at Valentine. "Oh, I am sorry. I didn't realise she was…"

"Never mind that," Valentine cut him off before he could further offend the girl and looked at her. "I'm sorry I let that out, Chloe, but he won't touch you now he knows."

Chloe gave an awkward smile. "Better of two evils, I suppose."

"Agreed," Valentine nodded as the three of them reached the large boulder of Mortimus's TARDIS. "Now there will be no more squabbling. We have a mission to complete and we're dealing with that at grade-one priority level. Everything else can wait, are we clear?"

"Crystal," Chloe said.

Mortimus sighed and produced his key. "So where are we really expected to be going, then?"

"London," Valentine replied. "We've got another pickup before we make for Norway."

"Anyone important?" Mortimus mused as he slipped his key into the hidden lock, causing a crack to appear down the middle of the boulder.

As he watched the rock split open to allow them inside, Valentine grinned. "Very important, Mortimus," he answered. "Cardinally, in fact."

**HELSINKI, Scandinavia Major AD5029**

"So what exactly is the Promise?" the Doctor asked, gratefully accepting a cup of tea from Eleanor Kirland as they sat together in the Watch room of Faith One. On arrival at the actual base, the Doctor had been forced to admit that the rebel operation was impressive and obviously based on some great determination. The people in the base were really challenging all odds in the fight for their freedom, sparing no expense and fearing no sacrifice for that cause. There was something akin to rock music playing everywhere and the singer sounded Scandinavian, and so the Doctor had come to the conclusion that most of the people in this Finnish-based rebel organisation were Scandinavian nationals or the period equivalent. But there were a lot of other people here too. Michinov was Russian – of that there was no doubt, Kirland was Irish by the sound of her accent, and that other chap was German. There were also some Scots and English, a number of Australians, some Americans, French, Italians, Indians, Japanese… everybody really. It looked as though this Alliance-of-whatever was oppressing the entire world, and so the entire world had got sick of it and banded together to fight back. And in doing so they had seemed to abandon all of their differences. People of every nationality, race, religion, age, gender and personal taste worked side by side to fight this troublesome dictatorship that everyone here so hated. It was nice to see humans being so kind to each other, he thought, but sad that it had to come to this for that to happen.

Kirland sipped her own drink. "It's a sort of a prophecy," she explained. "Only one based on far more than pure faith. Not really anything religious about it at all."

"But I'm in it," said the Doctor. "And since I've been here I've been viewed as some sort of Messiah."

"That's because the Promise says you'll save us, Doctor," Kirland said. "You'll save us all."

The Doctor was bemused. "Really? And exactly who was the prophet who foresaw all this?"

"Aleks," Kirland replied. "He's seen into Time."

"Seen into Time?" the Doctor echoed the expression in a whisper, his brow furrowing in concern. "And exactly what does that expression mean?"

"You know about the Zygma Beam tap we developed and the way we used brain scanning technology and special implants to link it directly to Aleks's brain so that we had an intelligence to control the use of it?" Kirland explained.

The Doctor nodded. "I know how stupidly dangerous it is."

Kirland looked sadly at him. "It's all we have, Doctor. It may mean the destruction of the human race, but we'd rather that than stay in the grip of the Alliance."

"I'm sorry," sighed the Doctor. He genuinely was. "Go on."

"When we first linked the tap to the cerebrum there was an accidental discharge of energy that fed right back into Aleks's brain. He was in a coma for four days and then he woke up filled with wisdom. More, he said he had seen into Time and he knew the future. He predicted things and they happened."

The Doctor's eyes widened in horror. "What things?" he asked urgently.

"He told us that the Minister of Justice Magnus Greel would destroy Brisbane," Kirland answered. "And as you know, Brisbane was sterilised of all life this afternoon, just about sixteen-twenty. He warned us about the destruction of the Americas less than three hours before the entire continent was as good as wiped clean. He also predicted some of the rebel triumphs, like the fall of Chad and the reclamation of Siberia. Chad was a huge Alliance processing centre filled with people being tortured and abused before we liberated them, and Siberia, once one of their defence installations, is now a bastion of our army."

"Oh my word!" the Doctor exclaimed, mortified. He stood up quickly, tossing his still half-full cup aside. "But don't you see what's happened?" He looked down at Kirland, who appeared nonplussed. "Aleks's brain has been exposed to the forces in the space-time vortex. It's accelerated his brain about forty years, hence his old-man-like wisdom and his flash premonitions. His brain has actually had contact with particles of future Time, converted and stabilised by the Zygma Beam."

Kirland stood up. "Exactly, and he saw you, Doctor. He saw you come in the rain and flood. He saw you tear down the Alliance and defeat the Administrator Marshal, leaving him powerless so that Aleks himself could destroy him. And he saw that vile, diabolical creature Greel vanish, screaming, in a ball of fire. He saw you save us all!"

"But his prediction must be wrong," the Doctor shouted back.

"Why," Kirland begged, her eyes moist.

"Because I can't do it," the Doctor replied. "I can't interfere with the Zygma Experiment. The saving of one race could cause the collapse of the entire universe if it's done this way. The price is too high."

"I am so, so sorry to hear that, Doctor," a soft male voice croaked from behind the Doctor, who turned to face Aleks. Aleks's face was tear-stained and his eyes looked hollowly into the Doctor's. "Because I really didn't want to have to do this."

The Doctor looked down at the blaster in Aleks's hand. "Don't be a fool!" he exclaimed. "You could end up destroying everything!"

Aleks shook his head. "No. I have seen better and seen you a part of it. Whether you were or were not willing I did not see, but I wished that you would choose to be our saviour. But even with that wish unfulfilled, our saviour you shall be."

"Whether I like it or not?" the Doctor snapped. "I cannot condemn every species in creation to destruction, Aleksander!"

"Have faith, Doctor," Aleks said. "With faith in yourself you can succeed. Please don't make me do this. Join us."

"I can't," the Doctor said solemnly, shaking his head.

"The please," Aleks wept, "I beg you Doctor, forgive me."

And he squeezed the trigger.

_**TO BE CONTINUED…**_


	3. Episode 3

**Episode III: **_**The Evil That Men Do**_

**BRISBANE, Australasia Major AD5029**

There was a heavy, fuzzy sensation in her head as she slowly regained consciousness. That attack had been, she felt sure, the most painful thing she had ever experienced. Every cell in her body had somehow accelerated at once, speeding ahead in years in the biological sense, even though only mere minutes had passed in the practical reality of the situation. A Time weapon, then, probably similar in many ways to the Terranium Time Destructor the Daleks had tried to steal during the Chen Conspiracy. So, there was at least a partial explanation also, in that case, as to why her TARDIS had been deliberately hijacked by those dilettante dandy-prats on the High Council and why there was so much Time distortion about. Shaking her head as if in hope that doing so would loosen her confusion and enable her to discard it, she slowly pulled her knees up under her abdomen and gathered her body up into a kneeling position. She inspected her hands, cursing under her breath at the sight of heavy crease-lines and wrinkles all over her fingers, and suddenly wished she had a mirror. By now she was probably a crone, withered and frail with white hair. Quickly she pulled a bit of her hair forward so that she could examine it. It was silver-white and brittle. Annoyed, she slowly lay down again, closing her eyes and thinking with a smile about how she would like to look. She could return to her TARDIS and get on with things after she'd regenerated. Curling into a ball, she began the slow breathing exercise carried out by a Time Lord about to go into a self-induced narcoleptic trance. And the universe blurred and softened around her, and a warm sensation washed over her, and a hand touched her shoulder and she opened her eyes.

"Are you all right?" the young woman in the protective suit asked. "We didn't expect to find anyone alive – less still anyone so young looking."

She smiled as she sat straight up without effort. "I'm fine. What are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same question," the suit said. "I'm Carly Rainier." And she offered a hand.

She gave Carly's hand a gentle shake. "Call me Rani."

Carly's soft smile could be seen through the thick glass of her helmet. "Nice," she said. "Ancient Arabian word, isn't it? Queen, I think."

"I expect so," said the Rani, pretending neither to know nor care. In circumstances as strange as these it was, in her experience, best to deceive and mistrust until one knows precisely what is going on. "How did you get here, Miss Rainier?"

"Captain Rainier," Carly said. "But please call me Carly. I'm a member of the recon crew from the _Dvorak_. Surely you know about us? You are with us, aren't you?"

The Rani nodded enthusiastically. "Absolutely."

"How did you survive?" Carly asked. "And how come you haven't the body of a ninety year-old and the mind of a nine year-old? The Zygma Cannon doesn't seem to affect you at all."

So that was it. The Zygma Experiment. This, the Rani concluded, must be the earlier part of the fifty-first century, the declining period of the Supreme Icelandic Alliance. Carly was a rebel, one of the 'insurgents' fighting to reclaim the freedom of the people of Earth, and the _Dvorak_ was a scavenger submarine. Right – now she had a tack. "I'm a Time Agent," she said. "I only just arrived."

Carly's mouth dropped wide open. "You're kidding!"

The Rani shook her head. "Deadly serious. Where exactly is this?"

"Former Brisbane," Carly replied in wonder. "Former since the Cannon was fired on her."

"When did the Zygma Cannon hit?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Are you Scavenger Six?"

"Seven. Scavenger Six was the _John Lennon_. Sank three days ago just outside Australasia Minor. Attacked by one of the Ministry appointed subs. Predator Nine Three-fifty, I think. We were assigned to replace Six yesterday."

The Rani bit her lip. "Because Brisbane was destroyed," she murmured. "I take it you've been ordered to retrieve anything that's in a fit condition to be used or recycled?"

"That's it," Carly nodded. "But second priority now we have a Time Agent. I'm obliged by my orders and my mission requirements to ask you for your help in overthrowing the Supreme Icelandic Alliance, stopping the destructive Zygma Experiments and freeing the human race from tyranny."

"I'd be only too happy to," the Rani said with a grimace. "Where's your ship?"

Five

**OSLO, Norway AD1967**

"Well, I can see that," Aspirodor said with subtle amusement as he reached a hand down to help Jamie out of the ambulance. "May I ask whose half-baked idea it was to blow up a bottle of disinfectant in an enclosed space?"

"We were trying to get out," Victoria grumbled from inside. "I stuffed some bandages in one of the bottles and lit it with the Cook's matches I usually carry in case of emergencies."

"And made an incendiary bomb," Aspirodor snorted as he hauled Jamie out of the van and dropped him on the snow. He crouched down and reached for Victoria. "What exactly were you trying to blow up?"

"The door inside here," Victoria replied as she took Aspirodor's hand. "Jamie thought it might be a way out."

As Victoria was hauled out of the hole in the snow, Keri looked down at her. "You'd have just come up against another wall of snow," she said, wrinkling her button nose. "That truck was buried. Not that you'd have actually even taken out that door."

Victoria looked up at Keri. "Oh," she said flatly, then looked at Aspirodor. "Your daughter is a little more flippant than I particularly care for, Mr…"

Both Aspirodor and Keri laughed. "My companion isn't as young as she looks," Aspirodor said. "And I am not her father. In fact I am undoubtedly old enough in your years to be her great, great, great grandfather – but we get on rather well in spite of the age gap."

Victoria frowned. "But how can you be? Unless you're like the Doctor."

Aspirodor's face lit up. "The Doctor? He's here?"

Jamie shook his head. "He was, but he was in the van when it crashed or something. He's probably buried under that lot." He pointed at the mound of snow at his feet.

Isgaard shook her head. "The Doctor's been transferred to our base. He's fine, but worried about you two. I'm Isgaard Nystrom."

"Jamie McCrimmon," Jamie said.

"Victoria Waterfield," Victoria said.

Keri looked at Victoria again. "Kerttu Kalonen." She held out a friendly hand. "Keri to most people. Sorry if I was a little... casual with your situation."

Victoria smiled as she took Keri's hand and gave it a light shake. "That's all right. You have, ah, a beautiful name. Is it Scandinavian?"

"Yeah," Keri smiled back. "Finnish."

"Finland?" observed Victoria. "That's part of Russia, isn't it?"

Keri chuckled. "In the time you come from, maybe still. I don't know. In my time, the time I was born in, Finland is a Republic of the People, and in the time that Issy comes from it is the headquarters of a powerful resistance militia fighting against the Alliance. My old home is not doing too badly in history."

"I'm Aspirodor," said Aspirodor, turning to Victoria. "And as you, young lady observed, I am of the same origins as your friend the Doctor – in fact we're rather jolly old chums."

And suddenly Victoria liked and trusted him. "You're a friend of the Doctor?"

"A positively dear one, my child," Aspirodor chuckled. "You're his companions?"

Jamie nodded. "Aye." He cast a glance at Keri. "She with you?"

"Mm," Aspirodor nodded.

Jamie sidled up to him, hushing his voice. "You're a lucky man, I think," he smiled, discreetly eyeing the pretty girl.

Aspirodor grinned. "So speaks a red-blooded Scot." He turned to Isgaard. "But enough of the social niceties – we have work to do. All of us. Issy, you said the Doctor was in your time?"

"At Faith One in Helsinki," Isgaard confirmed. "5029."

"We've got to get there, then," Aspirodor declared decisively. "These kids want to find the Doctor, you want back to your base and Keri and I have to sort out these insane experiments, so we're all heading in the same direction, right?"

Isgaard nodded. "But how do we get there? I don't have the link of the Zygma tap."

"You don't need it," Keri said. "And it's too dangerous using that goddamn thing anyway."

"Language, Keri," Aspirodor said sharply. "Victoria here is late eighteen hundreds educated upper class. She's been taught very little tolerance."

Keri shrugged. "Her problem, not mine."

"Then do it as a personal favour to me," Aspirodor insisted.

"Okay," Keri agreed. "Sorry."

"No matter," Aspirodor said. "And I agree with you about the danger. I'll take us in my ship. May not be dreadfully safe, but it's all we've got. As long as we don't go above the inner stratosphere we should be pretty much peachy."

Isgaard looked down the hillside to where the once flooded streets were now lined with walls of ice. "We'll have quite a tough journey back to your ship. Is it far from here?"

Keri smiled wickedly. "If it is, it won't be for much longer," she giggled.

Aspirodor produced a small black object from his pocket and held it between two fingers. It was like a little microchip in appearance. Raising his hands, Aspirodor clapped twice as if mimicking an Arabian Emperor calling a servant girl, and a strange noise filled the air. A moment later a tall dark shape melted into existence a few feet in front of them, coalescing and hardening into a tall black booth. Eventually it fell silent, and then somehow liquefied and twisted itself out of shape, changing from black to white before finally settling as a snowdrift. "Right then," Aspirodor grinned as he pocketed the chip. "Shall we go?"

Jamie was delighted, his whole face aglow. "It's a TARDIS!" he laughed, having recognised its sound and the way it had arrived. "No like the Doctor's though. His doesnae change shape or come when it's called."

"How the hell did you call it?" Isgaard asked.

"Remote control," Keri answered.

Aspirodor produced the chip again and showed it to Isgaard. "In 5237 on a human colony world called Fenris, one of my people will acquire the help of a gifted electronicist called Ignatius Statenheim in devising a special symbiotic remote control unit that works on a telepathic command circuit. Thus, absolutely any machine can be switched on and off by the power of thought. My people nicked loads of them because they work great with TARDISes, which in themselves are telepathic."

"So you just sorta think, 'c'mere girl' and she comes to you like a wee dog?" said Jamie.

"Something like that," replied Aspirodor, marching towards his snowdrift-shaped ship. "Now are you lot coming or aren't you? Because I'm going whether you do or not and you've got about five minutes to get in the ship."

"I can't see any door," Victoria protested.

"You won't," Keri said. "It's invisible. Just follow us." And she fell in behind Aspirodor. As Victoria watched, Aspirodor touched the face of the snowdrift and seemed to dissolve into it, followed by his companion. Grinning all over his face like a gleeful child on Christmas Day, Jamie strode past her to Aspirodor's TARDIS. Biting her tongue, Victoria allowed Isgaard to pass and fell in behind her.

**DUNSTABLE, BEDFORDSHIRE, England AD2178**

Pete Staples nearly fell down the stairs as Dr Campbell collided with him. Steadying herself, Dr Campbell grabbed Pete by the collar as if she were his mother in a fit of pique with him and raring to shake out his mischievousness, but picked him up and dusted him down instead. "I'm sorry Peter," she smiled. "Did you hear that noise a moment ago?"

"Yeah," Pete nodded. "Sounded like someone trying to flush thirty prototype khazis at once!"

For a moment Dr Campbell was nonplussed. "Khazi..?" And suddenly her memory of old Earth colloquialisms and idioms crept back in. "Oh, it's an allusion. Well, yes, I suppose it does. I mean, I suppose it would, if…"

Pete sighed. "Look, Doc, can I help you with summink?"

"Did you hear where the sound came from?"

"Barrow fourteen, Doc."

Dr Campbell beamed. "Thank you," she said curtly and carried on bombing down the stairs three at a time, rushing in an almost panicked way toward the main doors. She hurried out of the doors and into the front gardens, turning and whizzing past the fountain towards the little barrows that had been dug up in the perimeter areas of the grounds. Mentally she counted along until she got to the sixteenth, and her face lit up as she saw it. That King's Oak hadn't been there before. Maybe he'd repaired it, then. She waved at the tree. "Grandfather?"

A tall, dark man with a massive futuristic gun stepped from behind the tree. "I'm afraid not, madam," he said in respectful but serious tones. "Have I the privilege of addressing Susan Forman?"

"Campbell," Susan corrected him. "I was married in 2166, but I was Susan Forman. Do you…"

"Do I know the Doctor?" the man asked. "Not personally, but I'm on business connected with him and your presence has been requested. I must ask you to come with me."

"To where?" Susan asked, barely able to contain her excitement. "To when?"

"Norway," the man said. "AD5029."

Susan carefully approached him. "Please put the gun down. I'll come willingly."

The man lowered the weapon. "That's made my job easier."

"Job," said Susan slowly. "You're a mercenary, aren't you?"

The man grinned wickedly, obviously proud of his unpleasant profession. "If that's your word of preference. I prefer to be called Valentine."

"Bit of a romantic name for a hired gun."

"I'm a bit of a romantic hired gun."

Susan was standing right in front of him now. "And which Time Lord renegade are you travelling with, Valentine?"

A rough chuckle replied from behind her, "Hello Susie love!" And she felt a hand sharply smack her bottom. She whirled round and returned the compliment with a sharper slap across Mortimus's face. Mortimus raised a hand to try and slap back, but Valentine seized his wrist and squeezed it hard. Mortimus yelped. "Let go of me, you big oaf!"

"How many times have I told you that your lechery is nothing but trouble, you oversexed infinitagenarian?" Valentine said through gritted teeth. "Now you will desist, or I swear on the blood of my ancestors that the next of your hands laid upon unwilling female flesh I shall cut off at the wrist!" And he released Mortimus.

Susan looked venomously at the nasty little man. "What are you doing out here?" she demanded. "Another one of your greed-motivated master plans, I suppose? And how will you rope my poor old grandfather into this one?"

"I happen to be here on a mission of mercy," Mortimus said indignantly.

"Oh, please don't insult my intelligence, Mortimus," Susan spat. "You're about as merciful as the Spanish Inquisition."

"By his own choice, yes," Valentine agreed. "But something's interfering with Time to the point that the entire universe in all of its periods is threatened. This stupid old dopebanger is out to save his own skin at present, but to do so he has to take care of everyone else's."

Susan was worried. "And the others?" she asked. "I mean, if Mortimus and my grandfather are involved…"

"Then other Time Lord renegades will be participating," Valentine nodded. "I've been doing some research and some period checks and I've found an Aspirodor, Ushas and Koschei so far. There may be others."

Susan smiled. "Aspirodor. Well, that's one comfort." Then she scowled at Mortimus. "As for the Rani and the Master, as far as I care, once this mission is over they can all go and drown themselves – along with this little parasite."

"Please," Valentine said coolly, "curb your anger for the duration. The mission will not be aided by squabbling amongst ourselves. Let's get to Norway and deal with this, shall we?"

Susan nodded. "I'm sorry." She gestured to the tree-shaped TARDIS. "After you."

**CAGAYAN DE ORO, Filipina Cluster AD5029**

The hatch at the top of the rollway creaked open, its rusty iron hinges squealing like a pig being roasted alive as the light from outside seeped in. For a moment the column of sunlight held, but then another boulder hit the rollway and started careering down it as the hatch slammed down again with a terminal clang. Someone on the gantry cried out a number as the rock rolled past him and someone below the rollway acknowledged the reference. The rock hit the bottom of the rollway, slamming into the solid granite face of the stopping-block, and a group of people, men and women alike, some of them elderly, all in ragged clothes, their faces streaked with dirt and sweat, gathered around it. Ropes were passed from one person to another and then slung around the huge boulder, easily four times the size of the biggest man, and after a good ten minutes of heaving and groaning they managed to get it rolling across the cutting floor. Armed guards in black uniforms and hard helmets intently watched the unprotected workers, pulse rifles levelled in case of the slightest misbehaviour. The workers ignored the guards, sticking to their task as they collected the picks and chisels lying around and started to break up the boulder.

From the gantry, the worker who called the numbers watched the work start and shook his head slowly. When would this end? None of these people were criminals. They only crime they'd committed was to ask for a little more food and clothing or let their children play in the streets. What was so terrible about that? Some of the children themselves were even here, he observed as a filthy, almost naked girl scrambled up onto the rollway with a large spray can to apply the lubricant that made the boulders roll down smoothly. He winced as she wiped a tear from her eye. She was probably about ten. What kind of life was that for a young kid? He let out a long sigh, feeling almost defeated.

"What you need, my friend," said a voice from behind him, "is a drink."

The worker turned slowly, not sure what to expect, and found himself facing another worker. But he didn't know this one. That wasn't right. He was responsible for handing out the rations. He should know everyone. Everyone ate. This worker was tall and stocky, with long dark hair that looked too clean and neat to belong here, though he had the usual grimy face and shabby clothes and looked like he could do with a shave. He was holding out small flask. The worker raised an eyebrow. "And what is it? Something noxious procured by your friends to get rid of me?"

"My... friends," mused the newcomer. "And who might they be, Mr Villaluz?"

Kale Villaluz snorted. "I don't fool that easy. You're no prisoner. You're probably with Insurgency Investigation. Do they really take me that seriously? I'm flattered."

The newcomer gave a screwed-up smile and took a hit of the stuff in the flask. "I think the Marshals upstairs find you a very disturbing character, but they won't just off you. They want the names of all your associates first."

"They can kiss... parts of my anatomy that I wont mention in front of the children," Kale shrugged casually, eyeing the flask. A drink really would be nice in this dreadful heat and dry atmosphere. "If they torture me to death, I wouldn't even scream out the names of my friends with my last breath. I am no traitor."

"Glad to hear it," the visitor proffered the flask again. "My name is Valentine."

Kale's eyes widened and his voice was instantly a hushed whisper. "Valentine? It really is you?"

Valentine carefully placed the flask in Kale's hand. "Trust me."

Kale took a hit of the stuff. It almost blew him off his feet. Twenty year-old malt. "You're Valentine, all right!" he hacked. "Nobody else could get something like that in here."

"I didn't come without supporters," Valentine said quietly. "Or resources." He carefully slipped the catch on the toolbag hanging from his hip and reached in. Passing the apparatus from the bag into Kale's hands and taking back his flask, he said, "For the Revolution. The day of reckoning is upon us."

Kale looked down at the gifts he'd just taken, and then back up at Valentine. "God bless you," he breathed. "Everyone in this hellhole will be in your debt for life."

"Don't make me blush," smirked Valentine. "Now listen carefully. I've also given those to Vianzon, Rusik, O'Shea, Katzmann and Antonescu. They'll go on the whistle from you." He held out a silver whistle. "A distraction will be arranged. Whistle at _precisely_ eighteen hundred – to the second. Do you understand?"

Kale took the whistle. "You are not staying for the fight, Valentine?"

Valentine shook his head. "Someone's got to arrange that distraction."

The hatch gave its ear-splitting creak again and Kale turned to see another boulder slam onto the rollway and start bouncing down to the stopping-block. "Four thirty-nine!" he shouted. Then he turned to say goodbye to Valentine, who of course wasn't there.

**REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

The Administrator Marhsal sat down in his chair and looked up at Karl Klass with a puzzled expression. Klass wasn't a fanciful man, but the story with which he had just entered the office was more than just a little bit strange. "A monk, you say?" he asked slowly, slightly perturbed at the thought of the response. "An actual monk in a habit? Like in the old days?"

Klass nodded slowly, his mouth screwed up. Clearly he was as comfortable with this peculiar news as the AM was. "Yes, Administrator Marshal," he said. "Accompanied by two women and an armed man who calls himself Valentine."

"Valentine?" the name made the AM's ears prick up. He ran a finger along his bottom lip in deep thought. "That was the name that was painted on the dining hall walls after that power-cut," he murmured.

Klass didn't catch what he said. "Sir?"

"Show them in, Karl," the AM smiled. "I'd like to ask them a few questions."

"Very well, Administrator Marshal," Klass said with a curt nod. "Armed guards, of course..."

"No, Karl," said the AM, shaking his head. "Not this time. Let them have free rein for the moment. I have a feeling their intention is not to kill me."

"How can you be sure?"

"That Valentine man... he was here, the power cut. Do you remember?"

"I do, sir."

"He was armed and we were unprotected. He made the armed guards in the dining hall dance like clowns in a circus. If he had wanted to at that very moment he could have killed me every variety of dead."

Klass stroked his beard. "An astute observation, sir. I'll send them in." And he bowed slightly, turned on his heel and marched out of the small wood-panelled office.

The Administrator Marshal stood up and crossed to the small sink he had had installed in the corner of the office with the small mirror hanging on the wall above it. From the shelf of the sink he took a comb and a small carton of hair gel. Dipping the corner of the comb in the gel, he slicked his hair into shape, adjusting it to his taste in the mirror, staring into his own eyes. His fate had been a strange one. The man who had stolen his face casting him out into Time, and by pure chance the Zygma Beam picking him up and delivering him here years ago. When he'd woken up he'd been physically younger, though somehow his mind had remembered everything. That was why he had put every resource he'd had after his takeover into the Zygma Experiment. The power to be young forever, and through it to be immortal, was too much of a temptation to pass up.

There was a knock at the door.

"Enter!" demanded the Administrator Marshal.

The door swung open and a tall, broad-shouldered man in black barged in and pointed a pretty impressive high-tech firing piece straight at him. The AM casually put down his comb and returned to his seat behind his desk as the others came in. There were indeed two women and a monk. "Mr Valentine, I presume," the AM said coolly.

"Just Valentine," Valentine said.

"How enigmatic," the AM observed without the slightest real interest. "And what are you and your friends doing here in my Citadel, Valentine? And why did you break in here last week and sabotage my power system, only to spray some kind of adolescent graffiti and then break out again?"

Valentine didn't answer. "Shut the door," he said instead and the red-haired woman quietly closed the door before producing her own rather more modest weapon and training it on the AM. As he heard the door click shut, Valentine stepped aside to reveal the Monk. "My associate here has a proposition that may be of interest to you."

The AM half-smiled. "Oh really? A proposition from a monk? You know, I dissolved the clergy a long time ago."

The Monk produced his own shining gun. "Well," he said in fake humility, "I'm not really here for ecclesiastical reasons." He gave a wicked smile. "I'm more interested in the Time travel aspect of the Church, Mr Salamander."

The Administrator Marshal smoothed his fringe with two fingers. "Just Salamander," he said.

Six

**REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

"Magnus!" Karl Klass shouted down the gallery as he noticed the familiar silver and grey cloak of his friend drifting past the lower gallery staircase at the far end. "Magnus, wait! I need to talk to you." He held his place and watched for a moment, sighing with relief as Greel stopped and turned to look up the passage at him, and then strode down as quickly as he could. The gallery was dimly lit because it was evening, giving the already bizarre paintings and sculptures on display an even more eerie and surreal look. Much of the art depicted huge, dramatic scenes of religious inspiration, featuring life and death, time and the universe, heaven and hell and the like. Karl didn't care much for it, but it was the Administrator Marshal's bread and butter – he had insisted as soon as he'd come to power that the art be requisitioned for the gallery, and so it was stolen from whoever already owned it in the name of the State. In about a minute and a half, the gallery being quite long, Klass was finally facing Greel and slightly out of breath. "I hate to stop you on your rampage, Mags old man," he panted, "but you're in serious trouble. The Administrator Marshal knows you fired the Zygma Cannon on Brisbane this afternoon. He's threatening to execute you for treason."

Greel gritted his teeth. "Treason? I did him a favour. Those malcontents in the Australasian Sector will think twice before reckoning with Magnus Greel again!"

"You've catapulted an entire country into martyrdom, you idiot," Klass hissed. "News reports have been coming in for the past three hours, the common people of the world are calling you the Butcher of Brisbane and they want your severed head on a spike."

"And the Marshal intends to give it to them?" Greel snapped. "To satiate the bloodlust of those slavering dogs! I'd sooner they had his head and someone better took his place."

Klass lowered his voice. "That's insurgent talk. Do you want to end up guarding the Citadel?"

"Malconditionment for sedition or death for treason," Greel grunted. "Already I see why our Alliance is so powerful. In its ruthlessness it doesn't give its victims any more options than might get them killed or enslaved."

Klass grabbed Greel's arm. "Cut your tongue, Magnus," he snapped. "This attitude won't help you."

Greel pulled his arm free. "What do you suggest I do?"

"Go and talk to the Marshal. Explain you acted misguidedly and apologise. If you stay out of the public eye for a while until everything quietens down we might yet salvage some stability from this disaster, eh?"

"Perhaps that would be for the best. If the Marshal is threatening to have me executed then the only way to save my own skin would be to persuade him to calm down. I apologise for my outburst, Karl, and the things I said. I didn't mean any of it, you do know that, don't you?"

"I know you meant every word, Magnus," Karl said sadly. "But you know I'd die before I tell, old friend."

Greel managed his first smile of the day. "You're a good man, Karl. Bless you."

Klass patted Greel on the shoulder. "A blessing isn't what any of us need. What we need is a miracle." And he marched back off up the gallery.

Watching him go, Greel smiled wickedly. "Don't worry, my old friend," he whispered. "We may yet be granted one." And he headed for the staircase.

**CAGAYAN DE ORO, Filipina Cluster AD5029**

"Four-forty-six!" Kale Villaluz shouted as the next rock rumbled down the rollway and slammed into the granite cube at the foot of the ramp. Someone shouted up to him to confirm that the rock had been received. Like that was necessary. There wasn't a person in that pit who couldn't see every inch of the workspace. Villaluz checked the wristwatch Valentine had given him. It was almost time. He reached into the pouch that his supported had also provided and took out the ultralight disintegrator gun and the whistle. As the seconds ticked away, Villaluz put the whistle between his lips and aimed the gun discreetly at one of the Guard Lieutenants. He could clearly see a few of his fellow workers doing likewise. The hatch opened.

**PEKING, China AD****1937**

The massive garage doors opened and the machine's huge headlamps glowed in the darkness, fiercely bright, almost blinding. The Master stepped aside and joined Leung at the side of the driveway. Leung watched the machine with a smile that contained no emotion at all, his eyes fixed and yet almost merely glancing at the massive mechanical beast, as if his range of vision were only shallow. He didn't even seem to notice the driving rain that soaked through his suit and ran down his face from his hair. The machine's engine grumbled loudly and the Master, also oblivious to the weather but in his case more because he genuinely didn't care than by way of any external influence on him, spread his hands in a gesture of proud display. "Well, Leung-san?"

"Your machine is magnificent, Master," Leung replied tonelessly. He didn't understand the machine in the slightest, and given over to his own true emotions would have been terrified of it. But he didn't say that. He said what the Master wanted him to say, whatever would please the strange man's ego. "It shines like the moon in the endless dark of night, lighting the way forward into great prosperity."

"Enough of the poetry," the Master said dismissively. "Min Yao!" he shouted at the machine. "Bring the machine out!"

The engine gave a massive roar, like a giant angry beast, and began to roll out of the garage onto the drive. The Master gave it a clear berth, but Leung stayed on the driveway. The Master enjoyed listening to the guttural screaming and the crunching of bones as Min Yao drove over her ex-fiancé and turned him to pulp. It was most satisfying. He guided the machine out and ordered Min Yao to activate the power column. The tall steel and glass column rose up from the back of the lorry, projecting into the night and then adjusting its angle carefully to a clear diagonal, pointing at the stars. Anyone not under the Master's influence would have easily been able to tell that the thing was a cannon of some kind. The power feed charged and the cannon started to hum, buzzing and throbbing, the hum rising in pitch as the machine readied itself to discharge its lethal blast. "The machine is ready, Master," Min Yao announced. Her voice sounded as hollow and empty as Leung's had been, but somehow a little more horrible. There was a very slight mechanical inflection that would have made anyone's skin but the Master's crawl.

"Excellent," the Master beamed. "Drive the machine to the arranged coordinates and open fire at precisely nineteen hundred hours. Go."

"Yes, Master," grated the Min Yao machine, and it rolled past him into the night.

**REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

The sweat was making Mina Sidhu's fringe stick to her forehead. The ambient temperature of the room was about normal, but the heat wasn't the reason for her copious perspiration. The reason was the matter about to face her. The reports had just gone in about the complete loss of control in Fuel Mine HS720 and she'd been called to the Administrator Marshal's office to explain why she couldn't deal with the rebels and put a stop to the takeover of yet another fuel resource. Fuel was vital in these growing years of the Alliance, so much so that even with all of the modern fuels available, nuclear power and ion adaptation, it had been decided a few decades ago that there would be a massive return to fossil fuels, especially with their production and management being cheaper than modern power sources. Coal in particular was mined almost to a standstill, and Sidhu was the Minster for Mineral and Fossil Resources, particularly in charge of mining. It was her duty to control, moderate and resource manage all mining on the Earth, and so far it wasn't going well. In the past six months she had lost seven coalmines, two goldmines and a promising strain of diamond to the insurgents. It was a goldmine that the most recent rebel faction to strike had worked in – before they had revolted and put her in this position. This position. Sitting on a couch in the mezzanine outside the AM's office, waiting to have the book thrown at her. The insurgents had somehow managed to get weapons, and less than an hour ago had completely taken over. They'd killed – disintegrated – all of the guards and taken their weapons and communicators, and then they'd burst out and gone on the rampage. Word had it that they were hiding out somewhere, having joined a larger group that had enjoyed similar sudden luck. Someone had to be organising this.

A side door opened and one of the male secretaries came into the mezzanine, nodding courteously. Sidhu stood up, knowing what was coming, and brushed the sticking hairs from her brow. "Minister Sidhu," the secretary said. "The Administrator Marshal will now see you." And he crossed the mezzanine to the main door and opened it, standing aside to allow Sidhu to enter alone.

"Said the spider to the fly," Sidhu whispered under her breath as she stepped into the room. She was quite surprised once she entered, having imagined the office of the world's most important man to be a huge open space, lavishly decorated and luxuriously furnished, with huge windows letting in what sunlight the sky still offered, but it wasn't like that at all. The small wood-panelled study had a desk and two chairs, a small side table with a television on it, a sink in the corner with a small wall mirror and a plant on a small shelf. There were no windows at all. The plant looked South American, Mexican maybe. Salamander sat behind the desk with his fingers steepled, looking up at Sidhu. She gave a cautious smile. "Good evening, Administrator Marshal."

Salamander raised an eyebrow. "Is it, Minister?" he said meaningfully. "For you I don't think it has been a very good evening at all. For you I think it has been a chaotic evening, filled with unnecessary bloodshed and damage to Alliance property, not to mention the loss of another highly valuable mining installation. Don't you agree, Minister Sidhu?" he pronounced the word 'another' with great care taken to make it sound like some kind of accusation.

Sidhu was shaking, but she managed to nod. There was a huge lump in her throat, but she fought to reply. "It was a professional operation, I'm sure," she said. "Managed by one of the bigger rebel groups."

Salamander leaned back in his chair. "Oh really? And what makes you think that?"

"It seemed well-organised. The workers in the mine somehow got hold of high-tech weaponry – vaporising guns or disintegrators or something. And they had timepieces. One of the most important security rules was that no prisoner should be allowed a timepiece, because if you know the time, then you can all agree on a time to attack."

"And how would such apparatus get past your security guards and into your compound? Please don't tell me that your guardsmen accept bribes. Goodness knows what an insurgent would have to offer as a bribe, but some people have such low standards, don't they?"

"I have very high standards, Administrator Marshal."

"Well, you must've let them drop somewhere. Maybe you are accepting favours from the insurgents. Sexual favours, perhaps. Let's face it, you're hardly a pin-up." Salamander allowed himself a sadistic laugh at the woman. He enjoyed watching his underlings squirm, especially when he was annoyed with them.

Sidhu straightened up, tried to look confident and resolute. "I am not corrupt, Administrator Marshal," she said firmly. "I swear it. I am completely loyal to our glorious Supreme Alliance, and to you."

"Of course you are," replied Salamander sarcastically. "As loyal as a faithful guard dog, and under the circumstances I find that analogy highly appropriate."

Sidhu's dark skin almost turned white with horror. "M-m-malconditonment..." she stammered, terrified.

Salamander nodded, smiling viciously. "The guards outside will arrest you as you leave this room and you will be taken for trial. Just a formality, of course. Magnus Greel will be hearing your case. It will probably be his last job before I have someone hear his."

"No..." Sidhu breathed, shaking like a leaf. "Not Greel. That bastard won't give me the slightest..."

"Hope, were you going to say?" asked Salamander. "You have already lost every fragment of that, I'm afraid. Magnus Greel will see that you realise the error of your ways. Examples must be made, Sidhu. Otherwise we'd have everyone making these mistakes."

"You evil bastard!" Sidhu screamed and reached under her jacket, pulling out a sharp dagger and plunging it down toward the Salamander's head. He lurched back and fell into his chair and she flung herself over the desk to stab him. But he had been too quick for her. As he fell back into his chair he had drawn the gun from his shoulder holster, and as Sidhu dived for him he shot her right between the eyes. Salamander slid his chair back, stood up and edged around the corpse-laden desk to open the door. "Harold," he called out of the doorway. "I've made a bit of a mess in the office. Call the cleaners, will you?"

Satisfied with what he had seen through the ventilation grille, Mr Sin carefully unlatched it and lifted it up, sliding himself slowly and stealthily out of the shaft and lowering himself silently down behind the desk like a tiny ninja. Pulling a dagger from beneath his tunic, the action almost a surreal echo of his predecessor Sidhu, Sin crouched behind the Marshal's chair, cackling quietly to himself.

**HELSINKI, Scandinavia Major AD5029**

The Doctor was there and he wasn't there. He was here and he wasn't here. He was now and he was then and he was before now and he was after then and he was after now and before then. And he was here now and he would be here then and he was there now and he would be there then and he was there before now and would be there after then. And then he wasn't anywhere, anywhen. And Time touched him and he touched Time. And they knew each other well. And they embraced as friends embraced, kissed as lovers kissed, fought as bitter enemies fought and all the while they knew each other well. And the Doctor could see, had seen and would see. He saw the things that would happen yesterday and the things that had happened tomorrow. He saw what had passed and what was to come and knew neither one from the other. He saw the faces of friends, lovers and enemies of past, present and future. He saw his own future and closed his eyes, not wanting to know. He saw infinity and eternity and bore them both out with courage and faith. And he saw Gallifrey dying. And he saw his hands meeting with the Master's hands, with the Rani's hands, with Aspirodor's hands… he saw his hands meeting and joining with the hands of many other Time Lords, good and evil, and he knew that the situation was grave indeed. And he saw a leather mask with burning eyes behind it, laughing at him. And he saw London of the past in the future. And he saw the face of the Administrator Marshal and grew cold because he knew that face. He knew it better than any other face he could name. And he saw the Eye of Harmony, black and deep and endless as he floated in limbo toward it. Somehow he knew he was safe, but as he landed on the edge of the Eye and settled to watch it swirl and churn and boil up the dust and debris of all space and Time, he felt the bonds that held him safely between this reality and real reality snap. There was a strange twisting sensation and a sudden heaviness as the ground, or whatever it was, beneath his feet vanished.

And he fell.

Slipping into nothing, no where in no time, the Doctor watched the mouth of the hole he had fallen into, purple and blue with stars and comets like a child's duvet cover, being dragged away from him and replaced by all-consuming black opacity. He opened his mouth to scream, but the darkness around him filled it instantly. And then he opened his eyes and darkness poured into them too.

"Are you all right?" a woman's voice asked softly.

The Doctor couldn't see where he was. "I'm blind," he whispered. "I've never been blind before."

"You're not now," the woman said. There was a click and the blackness slowly began to show signs of softening into grey, which would slowly graduate to an ultimate white, giving the eyes comfortable time to adjust.

The Doctor blinked a few times to clear his vision and gave a weak smile to Eleanor Kirland. "Thank you," he mumbled grudgingly. He was angry with her. He was angry with Aleks too. He was angry with everyone in the Faith for this. Aleks had shot him with a Sensory Trauma Projector and then wired him into the Zygma tap so that as soon as he regained consciousness his mind would enter the beam, be he willing or not. It was terribly dangerous and might easily have killed him – or destroyed the entire universe. But thankfully it hadn't and it was over now. And he'd learned something, and although he was deeply disturbed about what he'd learnt, he felt that the knowledge would help him. Help him save the world. The world that had just betrayed him. He was still going to do it. He'd still save them all, even though they did this to him. He had to put things to rights in the world, because the problem was his fault. Fractionally. And even a fraction of responsibility, he thought, deserved acceptance. "Have my companions been brought back yet?"

"My dear Doctor," a man said with a smile that could be heard. "I delivered them myself."

The Doctor turned, sprang to his feet and rubbed his eyes. "Aspirodor!" he exclaimed, suddenly filled with vigour at the sight of an old friend. "How lovely to see you again," he seized Aspirodor's hands and pumped them rather vigorously.

Aspirodor grinned. "It's good to see you again too, old man. Wish it could've been under better circumstances."

"I see you've regenerated," the Doctor observed. When he and Aspirodor had last seen each other, Aspirodor had been about five feet and eight inches tall, slightly plump with short dark hair and a round, clean-shaven face. He had at the time been into wearing scruffy baggy T-shirts and jeans. This Aspirodor was tall, maybe six foot three, and lean, with long dark hair past his shoulders and a slightly thinner face. He also sported a small moustache and beard. He wore a long black overcoat, an eighteenth century French shirt with lace frills on the collar and cuffs, tailored black trousers and lace-up boots. He looked every inch the elegant gentleman, and the Doctor was impressed (and if he were entirely honest, a little envious).

Aspirodor tousled the Doctor's black mop. "So have you, it would seem," he chuckled. "Are you still caring for little Susie?"

"No, she moved on," the Doctor sighed. "Settled down with a nice young man and got married, so I gather. I really must pop over and check on her sometime, if I get out of all this."

"Your other companions are lovely," Aspirodor smiled.

"Thank you," the Doctor replied warmly. "I do pride myself on having a taste for good company. Speaking of which…"

"Hm?"

"Are you still travelling with Keri?"

"Would he want anyone else, Doctor?" a cheeky Finnish voice asked from a few feet behind Aspirodor.

The Doctor sidestepped around him to give her a hug. "Keri my dear," he beamed. "How are you? My, haven't you grown!"

"Well, I was only seventeen when you last saw me," Keri laughed reaching out a hand to touch the Doctor's cheek. "And you were about sixty-something. I am loving the face-lift. Don't worry, Aspirodor explained to me kind of after he did it right in front of me. Would've been nice for him to tell me before he nearly died and scared the life out of me, but hey."

The Doctor ruffled Keri's hair and turned back to Aspirodor. "Where are Jamie and Victoria?"

"Bathing and changing," said Aspirodor. "They've spent a long time in the cold and wet and they're a little the worse for wear. The medics will look at them in a short while, though, and they'll be fine. What about you?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Are you all right? Aleks told me what he'd done. Suffice to say he's the unconscious one now."

The Doctor frowned. "And did that achieve anything?"

"Made me feel better," Aspirodor shrugged. "Retribution does that."

"Well, I'm perfectly all right," the Doctor sighed. "Which is more than can be said for Aleks. He's completely mad. That isn't his fault, of course. It's because he had the Zygma Beam linked to his brain and it's caused permanent damage."

Keri joined them and linked arms with Aspirodor. "Is there anything we can do for him?"

The Doctor shook his head. "If the mania doesn't kill him, the aneurysm will."

"So now what?" Kirland asked.

"Now we save the world," the Doctor said decisively. "We may not be able to personally do very much for Aleks, but we can save the rest of you." The Doctor returned to talking with Aspirodor. "I've identified the cause of this whole problem with humans interfering with Time."

"And what did cause it?"

"I'm rather afraid I did. The Administrator Marshal is someone I've met before – someone I thought had died. Someone I thought I'd _seen_ die."

"Someone you thought you'd killed," Aspirodor said.

The Doctor looked deeply sad. "In a way, I suppose. More than anything he killed himself. He tried to steal the TARDIS and we took off with the doors still open. He was blown out into the vortex, where as you know everything dies. But in the seminal stages of its testing the Zygma beam must have crossed the path of the TARDIS, by remarkable coincidence at exactly the moment he was ejected from it."

"And it picked him up and delivered him here," Aspirodor mused. "The tests were probably pulling no rabbits out of hats at that stage and they'd probably have been on the verge of abandoning the Zygma Experiment, so picking up a live man would have made every bit of difference. Would've encouraged them to carry on pushing."

Keri looked at the Doctor. "So who is this lunatic?"

"I've no idea of his real name," the Doctor replied, "but he likes to call himself Salamander."

Aspirodor didn't know the name. "His name doesn't matter," he shrugged. "The question is, have you any idea if there's a way to get close to him? Close enough to, well... get rid?"

The Doctor's expression was grave. "Oh, yes," he nodded seriously, and Aspirodor could see in his fellow Time Lord's eyes that whatever the method was, it wasn't good. "For me it would be rather simple, if incredibly dangerous."

"Well don't keep us in suspense, Doctor," the voice of Aleks Nystrom joined the conversation as Aleks walked into the room. He scowled at Aspirodor and brushed a small bruise on his cheek. "Why don't you tell all your friends here what I already know?"

Keri rounded on Aleks. "Are you enjoying this or something?" She made a fist.

The Doctor took her wrist gently. He sighed. "Salamander and I are doubles. We look almost exactly alike. There's one absolutely certain way that I can infiltrate his power base." He looked darkly into Aleks's eyes. "By impersonating him."

**TO BE CONTINUED…**


	4. Episode 4

My name is Mariusz Cesar Miguel Joaquin de Paz Alvaro Vincente Medina, and in the time it took me to say that, I could have had lunch. Not that the length of my name really matters anyway; no one ever uses it. Very few people in the times in which I now live ever knew it or ever will know it, and back in the times from which I came those who did know it always preferred to use something of a different mantle for my address. Another thing that I don't let people of this period know is that I am disfigured. That would only cause the same problems I had in my period of origin. And of course, my origins to the people of this time are rather obscure too. It is strange to me that this is the fifty-first century, when I myself remember that I was born in the late twenty-first and I suppose technically died in the middle of the twenty-second. I was born in Merida, which then was the State Capital of Yucatan. It doesn't exist now. Too many bad memories. Sometimes if you have a really bad childhood you end up burning down your school. I know I burned down mine. But the trouble with arson is that it's so easy to misjudge the plan and end up in an awkward situation. I of course made a critical planning error, misjudged the strength of the accelerant I found, and was myself caught in the blaze that I had started. My clothes caught fire at the back and I had to throw myself from a window. The school was not far from the entrance to a small cenote and I rushed down and hurled myself into that too. I was very lucky. I was fished from the cenote by local men who had come to the school to help fight the fire and had seen me running to the entrance, but when they dragged me from the water the back of my clothes had disintegrated and the fire had marked me forever. Down my back, and down the backs of my arms and legs, there were long red patches that stood out against my swarthy skin. Because of those markings and the fact that I was fished from the water in the way that a small boy would capture a lizard to put in a jar, the men who found me called me El Salamandra. All in all the name isn't bad. I have certainly heard people called worse names and it's been useful in keeping people's noses out of my past. The trouble is that a man who has been _in_my past may one day appear in my future, and naturally that would complicate matters...

**Episode IV: **_**No Prayer for the Dying**_

**HELSINKI, Scandinavia Major AD5029**

Aspirodor sank onto the bunk where the Doctor had rested and released a long, heavy breath. He put his hangs to his face and massaged his forehead and cheeks. Finally he looked up at the Doctor. "Why do I not like this one little bit?"

Keri gently touched Aspirodor's shoulder. "Because you're wise," she told him. She looked at the Doctor with intent. "No one wise would contemplate such a dangerous mission."

"Would it be wiser to let the whole universe be destroyed by the Zygma Beam?" the Doctor responded sharply in his defence.

Aspirodor stood again. "You're not siding with _him_, surely?" he demanded, jabbing an accusatory finger in the direction of Aleks.

"I'm siding with _life_," said the Doctor firmly. "In the face of death."

"Life?" Aspirodor hooted. "You bloody fool. If you go into that... that snakepit, you'll be dead in an hour!"

"I'm not talking about my life, Aspirodor," the Doctor said calmly. "I'm talking about all life. All life in the whole of the universe and all of Time. Life that must go on, with or without me."

"And you think that throwing your own life away to save the rest of the universe is the answer, do you? A noble gesture of self-sacrifice?"

"I'm not doing this to become a glorious martyr, Aspirodor."

"Then why? In the Name of Rassilon, why?"

The Doctor stepped past him and faced Aleks, staring into the Norwegian's eyes. "I am doing this because I am the only person who can do it," he said seriously. "And someone has to."

Aleks gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Doctor," he gushed. "You have no idea how much..."

The Doctor raised a finger to silence Aleks. "I don't want to hear how grateful you are or how much you appreciate what I'm doing for you," he said dismissively. "I don't want to hear any more from you at all. I'm going to solve this problem, one way or another, and when the Zygma Beam is completely neutralised then the clearing up will be the job of whoever's left."

Aleks was stunned. "You won't help us to overthrow the Alliance?"

"Humans are always squabbling over something," the Doctor replied. Before Aleks could speak again, he crossed to Kirland. "Miss Kirland, will you find me a change of clothes?"

Kirland looked puzzled. "A change of clothes?"

The Doctor nodded. "The most exquisitely fashionable suit and tie you can find and the finest shirt and shoes," he told her. "I know Salamander, and if he hasn't changed that much, as I suspect he hasn't, then he'll be the owner of an expensive and somewhat pretentious wardrobe."

"Do as he says, Ellie," Aleks said. "Now."

Kirland scurried from the room. The Doctor faced Aleks again. "You should leave too. You have work to do."

"Work?"

"You're still trying to lead a revolution, aren't you?"

Aleks nodded. "Yes, of course." And he left.

Keri regarded the Doctor carefully, trying to fathom him. "Doctor," she asked softly. "Are you really sure you want to do this Salamander thing?"

The Doctor was slipping out of his frockcoat. "Of course I don't want to," he enlightened her, trying not to sound too harsh. "But as I said, I have to."

"Let me come with you," Keri suggested. "My clothes conceal my weapons pretty well and I can look after myself in a fight. I could pass as your aide or something."

The Doctor shook his head. "I can't put you at risk. Besides, Salamander is rather old-fashioned. All his senior staff are likely to be men except..."

Aspirodor looked up. "Except?"

"His food taster," the Doctor said. "Salamander always keeps a food taster on his staff because he has a dreadful paranoid fear of being poisoned."

Keri smiled. "Food taster, huh?" she mused. "Funny. I was just saying to Aspirodor earlier that I feel a little hungry."

Seven

**SCAVENGER VII: "DVORAK", Australasian Waters AD5029**

Carly Rainier ducked through the hatch, taking great care not to spill the steaming cup of coffee she was carrying, and walked across the gantry to the powerpod main shutter. Resting the cup on the flat rail of the gantry she punched her access code into the keypad and waited for the computer to give her clearance. A moment later there was a loud beep and the shutter rolled up to allow access. Carly picked up the coffee again and stepped into the powerpod. "Black," she said. "No sugar."

The Rani took the cup from her and smiled. "Perfect." She put it down on the control desk in front of the computer. "Be careful not to distract me enough that I might knock it over. I've no idea how waterproof this computer is."

"This is a submarine," Carly reminded her. "Everything's very waterproof."

Ignoring the flippancy, the Rani continued to jab at the keyboard, looking for useful information and the safest way into the system. "How is the radiation screened?" she asked.

"Screened?"

"For the maintenance workers and engineers. So that they don't get irradiated."

"Oh. I don't know. I'm not the expert."

The Rani looked round at her. "Then for goodness sake, go and get me the person who is!"

Scowling, Carly slipped her commpatch out of her pocket and connected it to her collar implant. "Theo," she called.

"Yes, ma'am?" a man's voice buzzed into the air.

"I need you in the powerpod," Carly said. "Now."

"Right," said Theo. "On my way."

Carly disconnected her commpatch and returned it to the pocket of her tunic. She leaned against the wall beside the computer. "Dr Theo Caine, our top staff engineer," she told the Rani. "He knows every inch of the powerpod and the reactor."

"Then he's just the man I need," the Rani replied. "When will he be here?"

A man burst into the powerpod. "What's going on in here?" he demanded of Carly. "Who's the civilian and why's she mucking about with my reactor? She could blow up the whole ship!"

The Rani swivelled in her chair to face him. "That, Dr Caine, is my intention," she said.

**REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

"So exactly what is going on?"

Mortimus ignored the huffy voice of young Susan Campbell as he inspected the device in the corner of the laboratory. He was far too interested in finding out the basic principles of its function. He'd dismissed the rest of the staff after that silly twit Salamander had fallen for his bluff about being a Time Agent from the 53rd century. Mortimus had promised an Alliance victory based on the success of the Zygma Experiment and assured Salamander that he would in the fifty-third century be no older in appearance than now. Tell an egomaniac that he'll always be young and powerful and he'll give you all the cheese in Zurich. Or wherever it was one got Swiss cheese from. So Salamander had told Mortimus that he could fully examine the devices linked with the Experiment, including the Zygma Beam projector and Time Manipulator, the control systems for the Zygma Cannon satellite in orbit and the Zygma Cannon – the pod that had been developed to project a man physically into Time, but had not yet been tested. There had been a lot of interest in that when the first announcement of its invention three years ago and Salamander was certainly keen on the idea of making another Time trip. The Zygma Beam had saved his life, and now could give him an opportunity to change it. The project was life and death to him, and that was the reason why Mortimus was allowed to dismiss the scientists but not the armed guards. The guards stood by the three exits to the lab, weapons levelled, eyes constantly watching as Mortimus, Susan, Chloe and Valentine examined the technology around the floor. Mortimus held in his hand a small disc, crystalline and off-white in colour and he was carefully examining it with a slender pen torch. "Trionics," he muttered. "Bit primitive, but it'll work as a basic key." And he waddled back toward the Zygma Cabinet and looked it up and down, shrugging and tutting to himself. "Presumably designed more for aesthetic reasons than practical ones," he said. "Dear oh dear."

Susan felt about ready to scream. She held it back though and looked at Valentine. "Do you know what's going on?"

"I know very little more than you do," Valentine said quietly. "But I can tell you what I do know... after I sort something out." He glanced over his shoulder. "Chloe?"

Chloe Knight was at Valentine's side in an instant. "Listening devices?" she asked.

Valentine nodded. "Debugger, please."

"Right," Chloe nodded and reached into her coat, carefully glancing from guard to guard to make sure no one saw her slip the device from under her arm. She passed it to Valentine.

"Setting number four, I should think," Valentine said as he discreetly palmed the device. His thumb found the dial and he activated it before slipping it into his pocket. Then he looked at Susan. "We can speak freely now."

"Won't the people monitoring those listening devices notice that they're being jammed?" asked Susan.

Valentine shook his head. "That's just it, they're not. The debugger doesn't actually debug as such. It doesn't do anything to the listening devices. It just puts up a very subtle audio-dampening field around itself for a radius of about ten feet. So as long as you stay inside the field, nothing outside can actually hear or record you. We're too quiet."

Susan breathed a sigh of relief. "That's very clever," she said. "My grandfather would love something like that."

"The Doctor," Valentine observed.

"Do you know him?" asked Susan.

"No," Valentine admitted. "I've heard good things."

Susan smiled. "Then you've not been misinformed. Now, what's going on? Why is Mortimus looking at all these Zygma bits and pieces?"

"The Zygma Experiment is dangerous," Valentine explained. "The people who developed it have made a fracture in Time. They've found a way to manipulate certain temporal particles whilst firing them along an energy beam. The beam becomes like an acetylene torch flame, cutting into Time itself from what I can gather."

Susan interrupted him. "That's crazy!" she blurted out. "That's completely crazy! Punching holes in Time like stabbing a cardboard box with a chisel could cause the total collapse of the universe. It could shatter the very foundations of causality."

"Yep," Valentine nodded. "And we have to stop it."

"We?" asked Susan.

"Us," said Chloe Knight, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the bumbling Mortimus. "Him, you and me, Valentine..."

"The Doctor," Valentine added. "Time Lords calling themselves the Master, Aspirodor, the Rani and any helpers and supporters they can get. Gallifrey called on Mortimus because apparently the effects of this project are threatening even them."

Susan was surprised. "The Time Lords asked him to rescue them?"

"Every Time Lord renegade offworld, apparently," answered Valentine.

"Quite a few refused," said Chloe. "Or weren't available for other reasons."

"But my grandfather – the Doctor – is here?" asked Susan. "That's a certainty?"

Chloe nodded. "Since I joined Team Mortimus I've been shown the ropes and put in charge of communications and monitoring. Mortimus showed me how to locate the temporal trace of a Time Lord, follow it and identify the Time Lord at the end. A trace leading to an incarnation of the Doctor was picked up in Norway in 1967 – a trace that physically crosses the path of the Zygma Beam."

To Susan it made sense. "The beam picked him up and delivered him here."

Valentine suddenly elbowed her sharply in the ribs. "The guards are coming over." He switched off the debugger. Two guards were marching toward him. "Can we help you, gentlemen?"

"What are you three whispering about?" demanded one of the guards.

"We're scientists," Susan said quickly. "We've been comparing theories on the potential of the Zygma Experiment. That was what the Administrator Marshal wanted us to do, study the project and expand it a little."

The guard eyed her suspiciously. "Well talk loudly enough for us to hear you," he said sharply, prodding her a little with his gun before turning to return to his post.

"Now's fine, Valentine!" called Mortimus tunefully.

Valentine shot the guard in the back of the head, killing him instantly.

Susan's and Chloe's faces hit the tiled laboratory floor as they were shoved in the back.

The other guards all fired on Valentine, but he wasn't there. Suddenly there was confusion. Susan looked up to see Valentine materialise behind two guards in a flash of yellow-white light. He was carrying a personal transmat device! He systematically and coolly shot both guards dead one at a time and vanished again before the remaining three guards opened fire, making black burnmarks in the door in front of which he had stood for a fraction of a second. Finally one guard got wise. He pointed a gun at the back of Chloe's head as she lay on her stomach on the floor, defenceless. "Stop it now!" the guard shouted. "Or her brains will be mopping the floor!"

"Boo!" said Valentine from behind the guard, startling him. The guard, taken by surprise, jumped straight into the energy bolts from his comrades' firearms as they tried to kill Valentine, who by the time the guard's smoking corpse hit the floor had once again evanesced. The guards ran over to where their colleague had fallen and Valentine materialised ten feet behind them, raised his gun and with two shots half a second apart smoked their brains like kippers. He glanced at Mortimus. "They'll have been tagged," he told the Monk-shaped Time Lord. "The alarms will go off any second."

The alarms went off.

"It's all right," said Mortimus. "I've done the necessary damage." He rushed to Valentine's side and held out a hand. "One of you take my hand, the other his," he instructed the girls.

They hesitated.

"Quickly!" snapped Valentine. "We've both got transmats and they take two. We can go straight back to the TARDIS."

Chloe grabbed Mortimus's hand. "No dirty tricks or I'll bite your scrotum off."

Susan grabbed Valentine's hand. "Bite what?" she asked as they dematerialised.

The doors of the lab burst open and guards poured in, a massive bubbling torrent of black and grey uniforms, guns swinging left-to-right. Behind them, Magnus Greel stormed into the room. He looked around. "Where are they?" he growled. "Where are the insurgent scum? When I catch them they'll wish they'd died with the vermin in Brisbane!"

A guard was crouching on the floor. "They've gone, your Honour," she said. "And they've killed their guards. How the hell did they manage to sneak weapons in here?"

Greel marched over to her side. "What did they use?" he demanded.

The guard shrugged. "By the looks of these head injuries, high-energy weapons. Better – or at least nastier – than anything we've got."

"Like the weapons used in the revolt at Cagayan de Oro," Greel murmured. He thought for a moment. "They must have the same supplier," he said finally. "Someone is developing new weapons, and the only way they can be developing weapons of that quality is with stolen or embezzled government money. We have a traitor in our ranks."

"We do," Karl Klass announced as he marched into the room from the door at the far end, also surrounded by armed guards. "And the Administrator Marshal seems to think it's you. I'm sorry, Magnus. I'm placing you under arrest."

"You slime-tailed, spineless sycophant!" Greel spat as his own guards also pointed their guns at him – including the girl he'd just been talking to – and stepped back. "The Administrator Marshal accuses me and you dance like a marionette to his tune! We were friends!"

Klass sighed. "I know, Magnus. I do regret this. But I can't afford to value my personal attachments too highly in my position. My primary concern is to protect the interests of the Alliance."

Greel was fumbling discreetly around the workbench next to him, hoping to find some oxidising chemical in a bottle to throw to cause a distraction so that he could escape and maybe buy time. His fingers closed around a hard glassy object, and a little rub of it informed him that it was the lattice key for the Zygma Cabinet. He was about to put it down when he had an idea, and he slipped it into his pocket instead. He still had friends, and friends more loyal to him than Karl Klass. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "All right," he grunted. "I suppose I'd better be taken to a cell."

"You can go to your chambers, Magnus," said Klass. "The Administrator Marshal, on my recommendation, has authorised the privilege of House Arrest. There will be guards on all the doors and windows and all of your calls will be monitored. The first sign of trouble and you can go to the Malcontentment Suite."

Greel sighed. "Thank you, Karl." And he allowed himself to be led away. He wasn't worried. House Arrest was a good thing. He didn't need to make any calls. Mr Sin would soon hear of Greel's capture and take action.

**HELSINKI, Scandinavia Major AD5029**

Jamie mockingly wolf-whistled as the Doctor emerged from the sleeping quarters completely transformed. His skin was darker, swarthier, almost Mediterranean, and his once scruffy mop of hair had been carefully combed and sleeked into a stylish, sculpted shape. His shabby black frockcoat, creased shirt, limp bow tie and baggy checked trousers had gone, replaced by a pristine silver silk shirt, a scarlet silk tie and a bespoke suit in rich Royal blue. His old scuffed shoes had also been replaced, and the new patent leather brogues gleamed almost to the point of dazzling the onlookers in the Faith dormitory hall. "That's quite enough, Jamie," the Doctor chided the young Highlander. "This isn't really an appropriate time for your rather unique sense of humour."

Jamie shrugged it off. He examined the hair and suit. "I've seen you looking a bit like this before, I'm thinking," he observed.

"The style does seem familiar," added Victoria. "I can't quite put my finger on it..." Suddenly her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Salamander?" she whispered.

The Doctor nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"Oh no!" Victoria breathed.

Jamie was a little taken aback. "Salamander? But he died, you said. He was blown out of the TARDIS. You said no one could survive out there."

"Normally no one can," agreed the Doctor. "But someone else was using a sort of Time machine at the exact same moment that he fell out of the TARDIS. It was pure luck. It picked him up, rescued him."

"And now he's taken over here?"

"Yes, Jamie."

The truth was sinking easily and painfully into Victoria. "That's why you're wearing those clothes," she said. "You're going to impersonate him again, aren't you?"

The Doctor nodded gravely. "I must."

"Och, it's too dangerous!" Jamie protested.

"I've already had this argument with Aspirodor," the Doctor said firmly. "Please don't force me to have it again with you. I know impersonating Salamander is playing a dangerous game, but Salamander is playing an even more dangerous one with Time – a game that could kill everything in the universe – and I have to put a stop to it."

"Well if you're going into that lions' den I'm coming with you," Jamie said adamantly.

"No, Jamie," the Doctor replied with equal stubbornness. "Salamander would recognise you and Victoria. Remember he knows you both."

"So we just stand around here like a couple of spare parts?"

"No. I have another mission for you. Aspirodor plans to sabotage Salamander's time technology, and you are going to help him. Just follow his instructions and when he tells you to break something, make sure you break it into pieces so tiny that a team of microsurgeons couldn't repair it."

Jamie dismissed the fact that he didn't know what a microsurgeon was. He had the gist and knew his task. Break things to the point of no repair when so ordered. "Right. What about Victoria?"

The Doctor faced Victoria with a stern face. "Now, this is very important," he said.

"Please don't ask me to just stay here out of danger," Victoria said quietly but seriously.

"I wouldn't dream of it," the Doctor told her earnestly. "I need you to help these people here in Finland with the rabble-rousing. You've always had a rebellious streak, Victoria. The time has come for you to put it to good use. Join this rebel group and help encourage these oppressed and downtrodden people to take up arms against Salamander and his Alliance. A war is about to begin on Earth."

Victoria was horrified. "A world war?"

"Yes," the Doctor said with an air of finality. "And we are going to start it." He stepped aside of the door to the sleeping area to allow everyone still inside to emerge. Aspirodor, Keri, Aleks and Kirland joined the Doctor in the hall. "Mr Nystrom," the Doctor said to Aleks. "I will be flying to Cagayan de Oro immediately." His voice had changed. He sounded Spanish to Victoria, or Portuguese. Mexican maybe. "You will take care of Miss Waterfield, and you will be personally answerable to me for her safety and wellbeing."

"Yes, Administrator Marshal," Aleks nodded with a mocking grin, his eyes glowing. They were literally glowing, Victoria noticed. That couldn't be right.

"Aspirodor," the Doctor continued. "Take Jamie with you on your mission and make sure you get it right first time."

Aspirodor marched past the Doctor and nodded to Jamie. "Come on," he said. "My TARDIS." And Jamie marched after him.

"Miss Kirland, you may return to your duties," the Doctor said. "Take Miss Waterfield to one of the communal areas and give her a list of necessary tasks."

"Marshal," nodded Kirland, playing along as she scurried off. Aleks followed her.

The Doctor restored his natural voice as he found himself alone with Keri. "How was I?"

Keri shrugged. "I don't know Salamander."

"Doesn't matter," said the Doctor. "I've done this before. Come along, Miss Kalonen. We've got a plane to catch."

Eight

**PEKING, China AD1937**

The Min Yao machine reached its destination as the sun started to peek over the horizon, bathing the city in a dark red glow as if the streets were filling with blood, blood washing over the roofs of buildings and soaking the once green grass of the parks. The kind of vivid artistic perception of inspiration that Min Yao had once had but possessed no longer. Not since her Master had made her part of the machine. That was the trouble with these idiotic humans and their slapdash attempts at time technology. Their designs weren't really flexible and therefore had to be used by saboteur in the same way as by inventor. So it needed a living human brain to open the access points to the Zygma Beam. Min Yao would do. Anyone would do. The Master would happily have tied in the brain of a four year-old had nothing else been available. Of course, he was already waiting at her destination, having travelled there in his TARDIS to meet her. According to coordinates he had registered earlier, this corner of the city would be the exact physical target location of the Zygma Cannon nested in a satellite more than five hundred years in the future. He was safe in 1937, but trapped there and limited in his powers to do much about it because of the way that the various devices of the Zygma Type had messed up Time lately. But he had a plan and now he had the means to execute it. His TARDIS doors were open as the massive machine rolled up to it and slowed to a stop mere inches from where his stood. "Very good, Min Yao," he told the machine. "You've done excellently."

"Thank you, Master," the machine grated, its once pretty voice now inhuman, its pearl-black eyes staring almost adoringly at the Master through the glass canopy of the cradle into which her body was strapped and her head wired.

The Master picked up a reel of cable that ran from inside his TARDIS and reeled it out to the Min Yao machine. He found the correct fittings and cabled the machine up before darting back inside his TARDIS. He checked the cable connections to his console and began to make adjustments on his computer. The settings were precise, the calculation meticulous and methodical. He was going to be right on target. In a few minutes he would fire the makeshift Zygma Gun on top of the Min Yao machine into the future and blow that satellite into iron filings.

**REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

Mr Sin heard the conversation from under the chair. Originally he would just have followed his orders and killed Salamander, but then Karl Klass had come into the room and Salamander had ordered that Magnus Greel be arrested. Klass had tried to plead for Greel, but had only managed to reduce the level of restriction on Greel. That complicated things. It would put Greel in a lesser position to carry out his plans. Now it would not be wise to kill Salamander. Only Salamander could order Greel's release. Sin had had to suppress his chuckling when he heard Klass concernedly telling Salamander that Greel was now being called the Butcher of Brisbane in some circles. Salamander had said Greel was becoming an embarrassment to the Alliance, and at these 'sensitive' times the Alliance could not afford embarrassments. Klass had then suggested that, in order to prevent further embarrassment, perhaps Salamander should make a personal appearance at Cagayan de Oro, where the revolt seemed to be picking up speed, and at least personally investigate Minister Sidhu's failure. After a little gentle pressure applied through appealing to his common sense and reason, Salamander had succumbed and he and Klass had left together. Sin had then clambered back into the ventilator. Salamander would die in time enough, but liberating Magnus Greel was now more important.

**FLIGHT FIVE-ONE-FIVE D, airborne over Asia, AD5029**

Keri continued reading out the briefing notes written by Aleks Nystrom from the datapad.

"_Your primary objective therefore is to cause or at least make possible the total and permanent collapse of the Supreme Icelandic Alliance. Assassination of Salamander is a very favourable option. There are also a number of other members of the Alliance government who should be at worst captured, at best killed. They are listed in Appendix viii. The most significant of these persons is Magnus Greel, Minister of Justice and Adjudicator-Prime to the Australasian Sector, whom we are now calling the Butcher of Brisbane for his destruction of that fine city and murder of every man, woman and child living there. He must be brought to us alive so that he can be forced to suffer as he has made others suffer before he dies as he has made others die._

_A number of dangers will face you if you should enter the Alliance Citadel at Reykjavik. Firstly the perimeter of the Citadel is patrolled by vicious beasts who were once men and women like us, men and women who fought the Alliance and were stripped of their humanity as punishment. There are armed guards all over the Citadel – the security is very high. Also, the Ministers have a fiendish pet. The Peking Homunculus has the exterior appearance of a grotesque doll, but inwardly is an advanced robotic assassin with a basic artificial intelligence supported by the cerebral cortex of a pig. It is free to roam the Citadel except for in areas occupied by Salamander, who finds it disturbing, and it is armed and dangerous."_

The Doctor grimaced. "Peking Homunculus," he said. "I don't like the sound of that."

Keri shook her head. "I don't like the sound of any of it," she replied. "Assassinate people? Capture men and bring them back to be tortured? Okay, so these guys are bastards – pretty fierce bastards – but doesn't treating them in this way make the Faith as bad as the Alliance?"

"Aleks is mad, Keri," the Doctor explained. "He isn't really aware of what he's saying. His brain's been turned into a spiral staircase by the Zygma Beam, and I've seen people disappear up staircases like that and never come back."

"How profound."

"Thank you. I'll remember it and perhaps use it again one day."

"If Aleks is crazy, won't that threaten the... the war effort? I mean, he's the leader and he's deranged. Look what happened to Adolf Hitler."

"Aleks is dying, Keri. He'll be dead by tomorrow. The Zygma Effect is eroding his brain and body, rapidly aging him. Haven't you noticed that fresh wrinkles have been appearing around his eyes every time we've seen him, or that his hair was black when we met him and grey when we left?"

"Vau. That's pretty bad."

The Doctor nodded. "I know. But when he dies, his sister Isgaard will become leader, and by then they won't need the Zygma Tap anymore, because I'm going to make sure that by tomorrow there's no Zygma Beam to tap into."

"So why are we flying to the Philippines rather than to Reykjavik if we have to corner Salamander?"

"Because Salamander isn't there."

Keri raised an eyebrow. "That's not in the briefing."

The Doctor shook his head and leaned back in the comfortable seat he had randomly taken on the otherwise empty plane. "Aleks told me. He has an agent on the inside. If we just went to the Citadel my bluff may not work to get us in, especially if Salamander beat us back there. But Salamander is conducting a personal investigation into some rebel movements in Cagayan de Oro, the place we're going to. If we can ground Salamander and cut off his lines of communication with the Citadel before we hurry there ourselves, then we could bluff our way in quite easily."

"That's pretty smart," Keri smiled. "Aspirodor was right about you."

The Doctor was a little surprised by the remark. "Was he?"

"Yeah," Keri said with a slight grin. "He always told me you had a pretty good knack for wriggling your way into trouble."

"Yes," the Doctor sighed. "Well, let's just hope this time I can also wriggle out of it." He made himself comfortable and reclined. "I suggest you get an hour's sleep, Keri. We've got a busy evening ahead."

**PEKING, Great China AD5029**

Kara Dagan woke up for about the fifth time in the same strange place. He recollection of events was hazy and seemed broken up into small, indigestible pieces. The cold, slimy metal chute, lubricated with the sweat and bodily waste of terrified others who had descended before her, probably including little Aislin, had ended abruptly and she had crashed into freezing cold, churning water. At first she thought she was going to drown. The more she struggled to swim to the surface, the more it seemed there was no surface to swim to. And then a couple of pairs of hands had grabbed her roughly and hauled her out of the water, coughing and spluttering and then kicking and screaming. They hit her a good few times to shut her up, sprayed something in her face. She'd passed out. Then she'd woken up on a plane, strapped down. There were loads of other beds around her, all containing other female prisoners, every girl naked, bruised, abused, strapped down tight and just about ready to submit. Kara hadn't been ready to submit. While there was life there was hope, and she knew that while she was still alive she could still work as hard as possible to make trouble for those bastards at the Citadel.

She'd spoken to a couple of the girls, the few who were still fit to talk. Most weren't interested; seemed to be ready to just accept that there was no chance. About three listened to her, took encouragement from her and tried to have a last few moments of humanity sharing their feelings. The whole situation was tragic and diabolical. Was this what human beings of the finest quality had been reduced to by the greed and corruption of self-appreciating scum? Was this always going to be the way of the world? Kara started thinking about Aleks, wondering if he was still alive and free to do whatever he could against the Alliance. She wondered if he missed her and if he might have mounted a rescue operation for her. Of course he would miss her, she knew that. And of course there would be no rescue mission. The war effort was too important to risk everyone in the Faith for the sake of one person, no matter how much Aleks Nystrom might've loved her. And he did love her. She had remembered the love. She went on remembering the love until she passed out again, and while she slept she dreamed of the love. She remembered when she had been a correspondent for an Australian newspaper, young and brash and impulsive, trying to get under the then-newborn Alliance's skin to get herself a good story. The Administrator Marshal had only just seized power back then, and no one had any idea how drastically things were about to change. Everyone would be worked to death to make money for the Zygma Experiment very soon. Those were the last innocent days, and Kara remembered meeting Aleks when she was chasing an international story in Norway, where a somewhat negative view of the new Alliance was being rather commonly taken. Norway was invaded by Alliance troops at the end of her first week there, and she had been dragged into hiding by one of the rebels. Aleks Nystrom was young and handsome and had that romantic, roguish revolutionary air that many women – including Kara – found highly attractive. She remembered how hard it was to get a moment alone with him because he was always busy crusading. And she remembered having sex with him in the back of a hovertruck after having finally cornered him and refused to let him excuse himself. She remembered how good it had felt.

Then she'd woken up here, in the place she now found herself, a cold room with shiny metal surfaces and sterile white walls, still strapped down to a bed or trolley or something, the sickly smell of disinfectant in the air. And she'd remembered people coming in and out, most of them wearing surgical gowns and gloves, some of them inspecting her, taking blood or injecting drugs. One man would come in and give her a shot to knock her out. She'd spent most of her time in this room slipping in and out of consciousness. Someone came in, flat shoes slapping hard on the tiled floor, dressed in a surgical gown and mask, but pretty obviously a woman. The woman carried a syringe. Kara's mouth was dry, but she was determined to speak. She couldn't remember if she'd tried to speak to any of these people before, or if they'd listened, or if she had spoken, what she'd said. But she wanted to keep on trying. "Why do you do it," she croaked to the female surgeon. "Why do you let yourself be turned into a butcher? You're a surgeon, right? Ever saved anyone's life?"

"I save lives every day," said the surgeon, preparing the syringe with an injection needle and checking to see that it was functioning correctly. "I work in the triage unit."

Kara felt herself smile. It felt painful and wrong, but also good. "How does it feel to save those lives and then destroy mine?"

The woman looked down at her, and the expression in her eyes was hateful. "Wonderful," she told Kara. "It feels so rewarding, after working so hard to heal wounds, burns, broken bones and failing organs, after watching some of those poor sods die knowing I can't do a thing for them, to get my revenge in person on the bastard scum that put them in that state in the first place."

Kara felt utterly shattered. She should have realised that when the surgeon said she worked in the triage unit she hadn't meant patching up civilians. Civilians didn't matter to these people. In her triage unit the only people treated were Alliance soldiers and guards injured during rebel attacks. The people this woman cared about, and the people that Kara had hurt, maimed, crippled and even killed. She wasn't going to get any sympathy out of this one, then. So much, she thought, for bedside manner. She closed her eyes and prepared to accept the needle.

There was a loud crash.

Kara's eyes were open again in an instant. She could hear gunfire and a lot of banging and shouting. The alarms started going off. _Rebels! _Could Aleks have actually been insanely romantic enough to have launched that rescue attempt? Surely not. She'd slap him silly when she got back to him if he had. Right before kissing his face off. The noise of chaos was getting closer, and then suddenly there was a massive crash of metal on tile as the medical laboratory door hit the tile and a bunch of people – surely rebels – burst in. Kara couldn't see them; the surgeon was in the way. But she saw a flash from an energy weapon lance through the surgeon's head and felt her face and shoulders being splattered with blood and small brain fragments as the woman crashed into the trolley and then hit the tiles in a very dead heap. Kara heard someone shout, "Release her!" He sounded Asian. Someone grabbed her straps and started ripping them off. Kara pulled a wrist free and looked up at the man. He was small, golden-skinned and a little perhaps oriental-looking. Of course! He was Filipino! Aleks had told her about the massive secret army being carefully assembled underground in the Philippines, but she'd always thought that it was just one of his stories to encourage hope in his own troops. Now she realised that it was true all along. The army had to be complete by now, and they'd obviously stolen planes and ships, started getting around the planet to take back captives and to capture enemy bases. "Thank you," she croaked to the Filipino.

"You're welcome," he said. "Do you remember who you are?"

Kara sat up. "Dagan," she said. "I was with Faith One Helsinki."

"Aleks Nystrom's woman?" the Filipino asked.

"I'm nobody's woman, but I'm Aleks's partner, yes."

"I'll tell him you're alive. I'm sorry."

Kara touched the man's hand. "Why? Why are you sorry?"

The man pointed over her shoulder. "Look in the mirror."

Suddenly Kara felt afraid. She turned slowly around, swinging her legs off the trolley and putting her feet on the floor. She carefully moved toward the mirror, her inward feeling of horror rising as she came closer. The face she stared at wasn't her own. This one was mostly green and scaly, her eyes bulging and reptilian like a frog's, her wide mouth crammed with needle-like teeth. Suddenly she looked down at her hands. She had no hands. At the end of each arm was a cluster of monstrous talons. They had already begun the process of malconditionment, and it was almost complete. Kara turned away from the mirror. She wanted to cry, but they had taken her tear ducts away. "I will have blood for this!" she shrieked, clacking her new claws. "I WILL HAVE BLOOD!"

**CAGAYAN DE ORO, Filipina Cluster AD5029**

Salamander stood back as the small retinue of guards he had brought with him opened the hatch that led into the mine recently closed down by insurgents. He looked down into the mouth of the tunnel. He could see that it was lit, but not well-lit. He glanced at Karl Klass, his expression nervous. "And you are sure there is no one down there now?"

Klass nodded. "The mine's empty, except for the investigation team you ordered down here yourself." He stepped into the mouth of the cave. "Do you want me to go down ahead of you?"

"Please do, Karl," Salamander said. He nestled into a ring of guards as Klass walked into the darkness and the group moved in behind the Deputy Marshal. Salamander shivered as he set his feet on the slippery stone rollway that had been used to shove large rocks from the nearby quarry into this pit to be examined for traces of minerals and fossil fuels and then broken up for processing. He stopped for a moment to slip off his polished shoes and his socks, trusting his bare feet a little better on the stone despite the discomfort of the subterranean cold. He'd been used to cold rock floors under his bare feet, though. He remembered swimming in the cenote when he was a boy, especially the day he ran for his life to swim in it, his back on fire. He watched Karl Klass move deeper into the mine and followed him cautiously. Karl was a good man, a man for the Alliance, but even he could be misinformed and tricked. Anyone could by a man devious enough.

It wasn't long before the rollway ended with a flat granite wall, but off to the side there was the cutting floor and before stepping onto it Salamander put his socks and shoes back on after wiping his feet with his handkerchief. There was grease or oil or something on that rollway ramp. Klass walked into the centre of the cutting floor and indicated a small group of labcoated figures examining the walls and floor. "These are your investigators, Administrator Marshal," he said. "Come and meet them."

"Ah, gentlemen!" Salamander beamed. He strode over them and found himself looking straight down the barrel of a gun. Startled, he looked up into a pair of eyes he had seen before. "Valentine..." he gasped.

"The one and only," smirked Valentine.

"Guards!" Salamander shouted. "Kill them! Why aren't you killing them!"

It was Karl Klass who answered. "They're not guards, Marshal," he said. "They're insurgents. They always were. I picked them myself."

Carefully, still aware that there was a gun on him, Salamander turned. "You, Karl?" he asked, totally amazed. "You have been against me all this time?"

"Slowly worming my way to the top," Karl nodded. "I even managed a sneaky name-change. My real name is Karl Nystrom. My brother is the leader of this revolution."

"I'll have you malconditioned for this!" growled Salamander.

Karl shook his head. "No more malconditionments, Salamander," he said curtly. "This is the end. Allow me to introduce some friends of mine. The man pointing a gun at your head is called..."

"Valentine," Salamander said bitterly. "We've met. For some reason he and his friends, two women and some sort of monk, bluffed their way into my complex and then did nothing but examine the Zygma Cabinet, kill a few guards and vanish."

"We did a bit more than examine that cabinet of yours, Salamander," chucked another annoyingly familiar voice. The voice of that monk. "And the ladies are here too."

"Yes," Karl interjected. "And that brings me back to the introductions. Also present is Kerttu 'Keri' Kalonen, escorting the revolution's best friend. Say hello, Keri."

"Hello, Keri," Keri said from behind Salamander.

"Say hello, Doctor," smiled Karl.

Salamander felt his blood run cold as a voice he always knew he would hear again but prayed he never would said, "Hello, Salamander."

**SCAVENGER VII: "DVORAK", Scandinavian Waters AD5029**

"Silent running," Carly Rainier ordered as the long-range field scanners registered that the submarine had entered Scandinavian waters and that the robot sentinels set to guard the base from attack under the sea were starting to gather at extreme range. The lights changed and the main engine sounds cut out. "Alaresto," Rainier barked. "Defence status."

"Full capacity," Lieutenant Alaresto assured her. "Torpedoes on standby, depth charges ready, sonic disrupters fully charged, energy shielding fully charged."

Rainier nodded. "Excellent." She glanced across at another officer. "Bennett," she called to him. "How's Rani getting on?"

"Hang on, I'll check," said Bennett. He fiddled with his commpatch and nattered a bit, then looked over at Rainier. "She's almost ready."

"Right," said Rainier. Then she looked at someone else. "Reinhardt, transmat status."

Reinhardt punched a code into her computer panel. "Ready," she said. "We can all get to Scavenger XIII, just out of range of the blast radius."

Rainier turned back to Alaresto. "How long before we're close enough to make our target?"

"Five hours, Commander," Alaresto said.

Rainier sat down. Five hours. Five hours to a nuclear explosion and the beginning of all-out war on Earth. She hoped that she was choosing the lesser of two evils.

**HELSINKI, Scandinavia Major AD5029**

Aleks Nystrom was dying.

Isgaard sat at his bedside, constantly wetting a handkerchief and mopping his brow. He looked so old. He was only thirty-nine, and yet his hair was pure white. Five days ago it had been grey, and three months ago it had been black. His face was bony and wrinkled like the face of an eighty year-old. He looked so ancient and weary. And in the past hour he'd gone blind. Isgaard looked down at him sadly as he shifted uncomfortably in the bottom bunk, seeming to be starting some kind of fit. "Shh," she soothed him. "What has this dreadful Zygma Beam done to you? Look at what it has turned you into. Why did it have to happen, huh?"

"World... needed... someone," Aleks croaked, his voice barely a whisper and full of the creaks of extreme old age. "Someone... to fight. To give them... something... to fight for."

"You had to play the hero, big brother," Isgaard sighed. "You never learn."

"Not... playing," said Aleks. "This was never... a game."

Isgaard felt a tear on her cheek. "You'll always be a hero, Aleks," she sniffed. "All the free people in the world will remember what you did for them. You gave us all hope. You made us strong and gave us the will to fight. This revolution would be nothing without you."

Aleks smiled, his ancient, desiccated face almost cracking. "Sweet Issy," he whispered. "A loyal and loving sister. I could wish for no better. "Then suddenly he tensed up. "I see... the Doctor!"

"You can see?" asked Isgaard, surprised. "You're blind, Aleks. You must be delirious."

Aleks struggled to shake his head. "No, my beloved sister," he smiled. "My eyes have forsaken me, but still my mind can see all of Time. And I see the Doctor face the enemy!"

Isgaard nodded. "The final battle, an end to the tyranny of the Alliance."

"Yes..." breathed Aleks. Then suddenly he tensed up again. "No!" he howled, screwing up his face. "The Doctor... someone save him! NO!"

Isgaard gripped Aleks's hand. "What's the matter? What's happening."

Aleks sank into his bed again. "We are lost," he whispered. "The Doctor dies today."

"Are you sure?" demanded Isgaard, squeezing her brother's hand. "Are you sure it is not the Administrator Marshal who dies?"

"The Doctor," Aleks said, slowly shaking his head. "The Doctor wears his own clothes again. Salamander, the Administrator-Marshal, wears a perfect suit. The Doctor wears shabby clothes that look untidy and do not fit properly. It will be the Doctor. It must be. The Doctor dies today. He dies."

**_TO BE CONCLUDED..._**


	5. Episode 5

**Episode V: **_**Brave New World**_

**REYKJAVIK, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

The stairwell doors were slammed hard to the wall as two guards charged onto the stairs escorting a Minister of Justice. Kyra Yeboah was in such a hurry that she almost tripped over the very corpse for which she was looking. The guard on Magnus Greel's quarters lay draped over the top two concrete stairs, dry blood that had once obviously poured from the gash across his throat sticking to his face and congealing in his eyes. "The throat has been slit wide open," Yeboah told her guardsmen as she gently lifted the back of the head in one hand. "The Adam's apple cut in half and the glottis severed right back to the vertebrae."

One of the guards grimaced. "That's nasty," he said. Then hastily added, "Your Honour."

Yeboah stepped over the body. "Undoubtedly not the work of a human being. Not even one as depraved as Magnus Greel."

"Mr Sin?" suggested the guard.

"The audacity of the murder fits the modus operandi of the Peking Homunculus, yes," Yeboah confirmed. "He will have heard that Greel has been placed under house arrest and probably come to spring him. God knows why that crazy inhuman thing has any loyalty at all to anyone."

"Who says it does, Your Honour?" asked the guard.

Yeboah stuck out her bottom lip pensively. "A good point, if a little curtly made."

"No disrespect intended."

"None taken."

Yeboah stepped gingerly over the body, carefully hiking up the hem of her long dress to make sure that none of the death's detritus attached to it, and turned the handle of the door to Greel's quarters. Unsurprisingly, it came off in her hand and the large wooden door swung open. Motioning to her guards, Yeboah stepped inside and looked around the small and somewhat elaborately decorated anteroom. The semicircular room had been decorated to look like the interior of a cathedral nave with white plaster reliefs of ancient Greek-style pillars, the walls painted sky blue and detailed with murals of great mythical battles, gods and monsters of every culture's mythology spilling each other's blood. Typical of Greel with his taste for the grandiose and grotesque. Yeboah wrinkled her nose in distaste and strode across the room to the main entrance doors that led into Magnus Greel's main quarters and domicile. At first she knocked on the door. There was no answer, and again Yeboah was unsurprised. She turned the handle. The door was locked. She banged on it louder this time, but there was no reply. She turned to her guards. "Your gun," she demanded, holding out her hand. She didn't care which one of them gave the gun to her. One of them did. She pressed its nose to the lock and fired. The intruder alarm went off. Yeboah handed back the gun and ordered the guard, "Shut that damned thing off, now." The guard ran off. Yeboah looked to her other guard. "Draw your gun and go in ahead of me. If you see the Peking Homunculus, destroy it."

"And Greel, Your Honour?" asked the guard.

"Kill him if he is in there," Yeboah said. "I will testify that you were defending yourself."

Grinning, the guard booted the door wide open as he had done with the doors to the stairwell. He charged in, gun pointed out ahead, swinging it left to right at arms' length as he scanned for signs of movement. Nothing in the opulently furnished open parlour had been disturbed, except for a floor-level ventilator grille that had been completely removed. Mr Sin had indeed paid a call on Greel earlier. The guard nodded to the open vent shaft. "Ma'am."

"I see it," said Yeboah. She raised her head a little. "Greel?" she shouted. For a small woman her voice was ear-shatteringly impressive. "Magnus Greel?" There was no reply. Yeboah scowled and stalked back to the door as the alarm cut out. "He is not here," she snapped at her guard. "That man out there has been dead for at least two hours. The blood on his face was bone dry. Greel must have escaped this morning. He'll be heading for the Zygma Suite."

The guard followed her out of the room. "How can Your Honour be certain?"

"An inventory was taken of the laboratory where he was arrested after Minister Klass took him away," Yeboah said. "The trionic lattice is missing. Greel has it."

"But there were intruders before Greel arrived, weren't there?"

"There were."

"Couldn't they have taken the lattice?"

"They didn't know what it was. No one below Security Grade Two does. It would just have been a piece of glass to those intruders. A paperweight."

"But Greel knew?"

"Greel is obsessed with the Zygma Experiment. He wants to go back in time and change the past so that he can rule the world. It's in his diary, on his databook. No one above Security Grade One knows we monitor all personal logs."

The guard exhibited a huge grin. "You monitor personal logs? Read people's diaries and personal records."

Yeboah grimaced and the guard hid the fact that he found it attractive very well. "You would not believe the things that some people write in their diaries," she said teasingly, flirting with him more than just a little. Good at hiding his emotions as he was, Kyra Yeboah wasn't stupid and could tell he fancied her.

The guard let out a long whistle. "Nice work if you can get it, Your Honour."

"Kyra," Yeboah winked slowly. "But not in front of anyone." And she swept up her dress and floated out of the room. The guard eagerly followed her.

Everyone in Zygma Control was dead. Everyone except for Magnus Greel and Mr Sin. The sick little doll sat in the main control cradle for the Zygma Cannon, readying himself to operate the computer. He was basically a robot, programmed for tasks like this, but very slightly enhanced with a pig's cortex so that he could learn and develop, manage his tasks better. When Greel had ordered the manufacture of the Peking Homunculus there had been perturbations in the Citadel about the matter. The idea had been considered obscene and an abuse of technology, but for some reason it had amused Salamander and so it gained the full backing of the Administration. Greel had said that he had wanted a pet and an easily programmed servant to help him with 'general tasks on a low level' and had suggested to Salamander that the Homunculus could also be a troubleshooter, freely roaming around the Citadel, spying on Ministers, weeding out the traitors and neatly and discreetly assassinating them. Salamander had considered Mr Sin a highly valuable asset around the Alliance headquarters. Since then of course everyone including Salamander had realised that 'Mr Sin' was, much like Greel, as mad as a snake. The weird little object had taken to scuttling through the vents like a spider and slitting throats at random. He was all kinds of trouble and Salamander had ordered him destroyed as soon as Greel was arrested. The order wasn't easy to carry out, because to be destroyed, Mr Sin would first have to be found.

Greel looked over the shoulder of his twisted pet. "Is the cannon ready to fire, Sin?" he demanded.

"Almost ready, Noble Master," the hideous Homunculus cackled. "The power systems are feeding at eighty-nine per cent." Tiny synthetic hands grasped the joysticks. "Where do you want the target alignment?"

"Cagayan de Oro," Greel barked. "Destroy Salamander. I will take over as Administrator Marshal and rule."

Chuckling like a mischievous child, Mr Sin pulled at the joysticks and slowly adjusted the position of the crosshair. He liked playing with weapons. He readied a thumb on the firing button.

"Fire when ready!" ordered Greel.

An energy bolt flashed past the doll's head, singing his hat and causing a shower of sparks to burst from the screen. The screen blacked out and the heads-up display for the targeting system was no longer visible. Greel whirled round to see the source of the blast. A short, slender black woman in a flowing dress stood in the doorway, gun pointing at Greel. "Get away from those controls, Greel!" Kyra Yeboah shouted.

"Fire, Sin!" Greel barked.

"Master, I have lost the sensors," Sin protested. "I may be off target considerably."

"We'll have to take that chance, Sin! Fire!"

Yeboah rushed to stop Sin. She couldn't risk firing another shot in this enclosed space with this sensitive technology lying around. She'd already damaged the targeting system for the Zygma Cannon. It could be positioned right over Reykjavik now for all she knew. Greel brought up his knee swiftly and Yeboah ran into it, winding herself. Her guard appeared in front of Greel as he ran for the door and swung a punch at him. Greel dodged the blow, causing the guard to stumble into the room, and then shoved him out of the way and bolted down the corridor. "Leave him," gasped Yeboah, trying to scramble to her feet. "Stop Sin!"

The guard charged forward and tripped over her.

Sin fired the Zygma Cannon.

Nine

**CAGAYAN DE ORO, Filipina Cluster AD5029**

Salamander stared at the Doctor in stupefaction. The face was exactly like he remembered it – exactly like his own. The doppelganger wore a suit, shirt, shoes and tie that Salamander himself would feel perfectly comfortable wearing in the dining hall at the Citadel with all his ministers around him, feeling not the slightest bit embarrassed. But these were not the usual clothes of this man, and the hair was not the usual hair, the skintone not the usual skintone. Double in all other aspects though he was, the Doctor still had to wear the disguise of the Salamander. So this was the rebels' plot. One of the smarter rebel groups had managed to get its hands on the Doctor and then arranged to send him into the Citadel posing as Salamander, a trick the Doctor had used before. And that monk had said something. He had done, he said, a lot more than just look at the Zygma Cabinet. Another dirty insurgent trick: sabotage. Salamander resolved to get out of this as quickly as possible and hurry back to the Citadel. He had to warn his ministers of the impostor and warn his scientists of the unauthorised modifications to Zygma apparatus. But how to get out of it? Perhaps he could buy time. Time. Maybe he had something there. "Hello, Doctor," he said quietly, calmly. "I must say I'm impressed to find you in the fifty-first century, alive and well and looking not a day older."

The Doctor gave his double a hard stare. "And I might've felt equally impressed," he replied in a tone that suggested quite the opposite. "If I weren't disgusted!"

"Disgusted?" Salamander cocked an eyebrow at the mention of the word. "That I survived your attempt to murder me? Or that I came here and crawled once again out of the flames?"

"Disgusted by the way you have abused the world, Salamander," the Doctor snapped. "By the way you have picked apart the human race, broken up families and turned friends at each other's throats."

"Everyone has to survive, Doctor."

"Oh I agree. And do you think of that when you enslave millions of men, women and children, put them in mines like these and work them to death?"

"They are criminals, Doctor."

"Some of them are _schoolchildren!_" the Doctor shouted almost violently. "What can boys and girls of eight or nine have done that was more terrible than pilfering a packet of biscuits from a supermarket shelf while mother wasn't looking? And what harder punishment would they need than smacked legs or going straight to bed without supper?"

A dark haired, dark eyed woman stepped forward and gently touched the Doctor's shoulder. There was love in that touch. Even Salamander could see it. "Grandfather," she said to him kindly, coaxingly.

The Doctor lowered his voice and the lines in his face shifted, softening his hard, angry expression into a cooling firmness. His voice now was much quieter, but still filled with disgust, anger and somewhere far beneath its layers just a flicker of guilt. "You're so obsessed with power that you think arriving here after being blasted out of my ship to be some glorious second chance."

Salamander's eyes sparkled. "God chose me to rule this world."

"God, eh?" the Doctor mused with a more casual expression and tone. "Catholic school, was it?"

"Of course," Salamander grinned.

"Well, no wonder you're mad," the Doctor said flatly.

It was Salamander's turn to wear that exact same enraged expression and start shouting. "It is my destiny to take these animals that call themselves mankind," he growled, "and turn them into people worthy of the strength and intelligence God gave them!"

"Adolf Hitler thought that," the Doctor nodded. "Mad as a snake."

Salamander could take no more mockery. He launched himself at the Doctor, hands grasping at the Time Lord's throat. A flash from Chloe Knight's STP brought him to his knees. The dictator clutched his tingling stomach, slightly hunched over, carefully concealing the slow movement of his right hand as he slid it under his jacket. "I will fulfil my destiny, Doctor," he croaked. "No one can stop me. Not even you."

Valentine nodded to Chloe. "Get him up."

Chloe walked over to Salamander and reached down to haul him to his feet. "Thank you," he said as he allowed her to help him up. As soon as he was on his feet he pressed the nose of his small pistol to her breastbone and disintegrated her heart. Open-eyed and staring into empty space, Chloe collapsed onto her back, a perfectly round hole burned right through her chest, overheated blood bubbling to the surface and staining her jacket. Before anyone else could take action, Salamander's hand flashed out and snatched the wrist of the Doctor's granddaughter. In a second the nose of his gun was pressed to her cranium. "Now all of you, back away," Salamander ordered. "Or this one will be the next to die."

Valentine gave a wolfish grin and levelled his gun at Salamander's head. "And after we've all backed away out of your reach, one of us has pulled a stunt and you've killed her, you'll be right out of hostages and at our mercy again."

The Doctor raised his hand quickly. "No, Valentine!"

Salamander laughed wickedly. "I thought as much. This is a hostage who definitely is not expendable, isn't that right Doctor? I'm not stupid. I have eyes and ears, and this woman is the Doctor's granddaughter. He could never allow any of you to risk her life."

"Well, that's our plan buggered," shrugged the Monk.

"Any chance you could advance me my fee, then?" asked Valentine. "Then I'll just pop off. Glad to help and all, but I really don't fight lost causes. No profit in it, you see."

The Monk looked at him shiftily. "You stay here till I'm done with you."

Salamander was backing toward the rollway with Susan headlocked in one arm. He kicked off his shoes, remembering the oil on the ramp as he moved in closer. "Get your shoes off," he ordered Susan. "Now."

Deciding it would be best not to argue, Susan kicked off her shoes. She watched as Karl Nystrom motioned to the guards, instructing them to back away from Salamander and let him pass. Karl knew that he couldn't risk the girl, because if she died they would lose the Doctor's allegiance completely, and without the Doctor there could be no victory for the Faith. "Where are we going?" Susan demanded of Salamander.

"Back to my headquarters," he replied. "Where I can tear down this plan of the Doctor's to impersonate me and sabotage my empire from within." He began dragging her up the ramp.

Susan felt the slippery oil under her feet. The answer! Quickly she slipped a foot between Salamander's legs, locked it behind one of his ankles and pulled. In a second both Susan and Salamander were on their backs, sliding back down the ramp. Susan rolled off the ramp before the bottom and Salamander slid past her. Karl and Valentine pulled off a couple of shots at Salamander, hoping to finish him off while he was helpless. But Salamander managed to roll off the ramp safely too.

"Run, Susan!" the Doctor shouted. "Hurry!"

Susan ran. Salamander stuck out his pistol and fired at her. She dodged the shot as one of the guards fired back. A pulse from Salamander's weapon lanced the guard's eye and down he went. The rest of the guards charged toward Salamander like the New York Giants converging on the ball in the critical last few minutes of the game. But Salamander was fast. He killed four of them before they could get within four metres of him. A couple of them tried taking potshots at him, but he had started running too now and was weaving clear of the blasts. He managed to get behind one of the boulders that hadn't been broken up, and from is cover he continued picking off the guards. Then he had an idea.

Valentine rounded on Karl. "Your guards are imbeciles!" he snapped. "He's picking them off as easy as a schoolboy picks his nose!"

"The odds are against him," Karl protested. "There won't be enough power in his gun's cell to kill all of them."

"And if he's got another gun? How many do we let him kill before we can have him?"

"This is all we've got, unless you have a better plan."

"Anything's got to be better than letting your own men get killed."

Suddenly a blast ripped out from behind Salamander's rock, but it wasn't aimed at any of the guards. It hit one of the powerful underground lighting brackets, causing it to explode and black out. Another pulse took out a second bracket. The Doctor looked up. "He's blowing out the lights!" he shouted urgently. "He'll be impossible to find in this open space in the dark."

Another lighting unit exploded and packed up. Valentine twisted a control on his gun, and from above the barrel a powerful torch beam sliced through the increasing gloom. "I'll bloody find him," he said through gritted teeth.

The Doctor moved in close to Valentine. "I have a much better idea," he said quietly into the mercenary's ear.

"I'm listening," Valentine said equally quietly.

"Let him take out the lights," the Doctor said. "Make a show of things. Salamander has a colossal ego. If we make it sound like we're giving up because he's been too clever for us, he'll think we're beaten and hide in here in the dark till we've gone."

"Then what?" asked Valentine.

"Then we lock the exit hatch from the outside and fuse it with your gun if necessary," said the Doctor. "And he can stay down here in the dark for good."

Valentine grinned. "Sneaky bastard. I love it." He gestured to the rest of his teammates to gather around him as another lamp blew. There was only one more to go now, and Salamander would be aiming for it at that very second. "Listen, lads," Valentine whispered, the Doctor's got an idea."

With one eye open and one closed, Salamander aimed for the last of the lighting brackets and fired. It exploded spectacularly, sparks flying all over the place, and suddenly the whole mine was in pitch darkness except for the mercenary Valentine's torch. Maybe if he were a good enough aim he could nail that too. As soon as it was out he could dart for the cover of another rock. Without shoes to clatter on the hard stone floor, no one could hear him, and he would be able to hear their heavy boots. Carefully, Salamander poked his head out from behind the rock, crouching low near its side. The beam of Valentine's torch swung above his head and he seized his chance. Aiming at the source of the beam, he fired. There was a flash and the beam sputtered out. Salamander grinned as he heard Valentine's gun clatter onto the floor. "Shit," Valentine hissed. "Didn't count on him being that good a shot."

"We're all in danger," said the Doctor. "If we wait down here, Salamander could sneak up on us and pick us off one by one. We haven't a chance."

"Surely the guards, Grandfather..." Susan protested.

"There are only about four left," said that traitor Karl Klass or whatever his name was.

"Exactly," said Valentine. "We're gonna need everyone we've got left now just to get out of this mine in one piece."

"Eh?" said that stupid monk.

The Doctor again. "Valentine's right. We'll need the guards, Karl and Valentine to bodyguard those of us who aren't armed. We can neither see Salamander nor hear him, so he could easily get a few good shots in while we're climbing the ramp to the exit."

Karl. "Can he aim that well in the dark?"

The Doctor. "Never underestimate Salamander. I did, and he's come back to confound me." Quite right, Doctor. And believe me, I will.

"Shall I get the rucksack?" asked Susan.

"There isn't time to fumble for it in the dark. It's not safe," said the Doctor. "We should just make our way out."

"Come on you lot," said Valentine. "Let's move."

Grinning smugly, Salamander let his enemies go. He would give them about ten minutes to get clear and then sneak out after them. They wouldn't be able to steal his plane – he had code-locked it quite securely and set it to self destruct at the instant the computer registered any tampering. They'd use whatever transport got them here in the first place, and as soon as Salamander got to his plane, he'd radio the Citadel on his secure frequency and warn them of the impostors. No one would doubt the man using that frequency could only be the true Administrator Marshal. But that rucksack that had been mentioned by the girl. What was in that? He could at least spend the ten minutes he was giving his enemies as a head start taking a look to see if any of the Doctor's secrets were available for pilferage.

**PEKING, China AD1937**

The Master watched the blue glow fade from the early morning sky, the clashing orange of sunrise consuming it completely, and walked casually back into his TARDIS. From the control console he ran a quick computer scan to determine the effects of his makeshift Zygma Gun on the weapon's future target. The scan registered a result: the stabilising beam had held the satellite in the fifty-first century within a temporal confinement field and then the temporal energy feed itself had been delivered. Time particles reaching back to 1937 had ravaged the satellite, turning it back to centuries before its construction and effectively unmaking it. The Master allowed himself a smile of smug satisfaction before turning and strolling back out to face the Min Yao machine for the final time. He had been wise to make a hobby of collecting information about all Time technology used by cultures other than his own, he thought. Originally he'd taken it up just in case of finding something clever that Gallifrey hadn't got, so that he could steal it and add it to his own TARDIS, making his superior to everyone else's. But the data had other uses too. If Time experiments of which the Master knew got out of hand to the point that they threatened his own enterprise, his knowledge would afford him certain powers of sabotage. This venture had worked out in precisely that way. He'd pinched some historical notes on the Zygma Experiments from a galactic library in the one hundred and thirty-third century, and now they had come in rather handy.

He did not speak to Min Yao when he approached the machine; did not acknowledge her as he disconnected her life support cables and nourishment tubes; did not listen when she registered this and started to whine. He glanced for a moment at her desiccated skin and oily eyes, her lank hair and dry lips, her surgical wounds and roughly implanted mechanical prostheses, and grimaced. Such a waste, he thought, but necessary. The Zygma Beam in the future was linked to at least one living mind, and one can only successfully fight a living mind with a living mind. His own was just too important to be risked. Carefully he reached inside the control cradle and pressed a couple of buttons, and then turned and walked back to his TARDIS. He disconnected the cables linked to the machine and closed the doors. Another switch was pressed and suddenly the Min Yao machine resolved itself into solid form within the Master's spacious console room. Another switch put a safety containment field around it while it self destructed, and another despatched its debris into the vortex. The Master went to a chair he had put out for himself in the corner of the room and sat down to wait. He knew that he would still be limited in his travel capability until the rest of the Zygma Apparatus had been completely closed down. Already it was night again, when a moment ago it had been sunrise – an effect of the Zygma Beam as idiots in the future tinkered with it and tested it. Every period in history was being poked about and messed with, and every Time traveller was in an awkward situation. At first the Master had wondered, if the Beam was affecting every point in history, why he'd not been trapped like this on any of his other visits to Earth. Then he had read the historical notes he'd stolen and realised that only certain periods and places were ever scanned to any real depth. In fact, there were only two physical locations with respective historical periods that had been really seriously scanned at all: China in 1937 and Norway in 1967. Thousands of miles and thirty years apart, those two were especially picked on. But why? Sighing, the Master chewed over the thought. Perhaps the Beam had picked up other Time traces. Perhaps, purely by chance, it had scanned his TARDIS while it was here in 1937, and the TARDIS of another renegade in Norway thirty years hence, and the technicians monitoring the Beam's frequency were curious to discover other examples of temporal physics in the past. Yes. That would be it. A lucky shot.

**ICE BREAKER "HVERGELMIR", Icelandic Waters AD5029**

Kale Villaluz passed the cup of coffee into the gnarled claw hands of the creature that had once been Kara Dagan. Kara managed to hold it with tolerable stability, and Villaluz popped in a drinking straw to help the liquid circumnavigate her massive new teeth. "I really am sorry about what they did to you," he said sadly.

Kara slurped up a little of the coffee. "Don't pity me," she said bitterly. "Just get me my revenge."

"We should be arriving at Reykjavik in just over an hour," Villaluz told her. "You can have all the blood you want when we destroy the Citadel."

Kara slowly blinked her new eyes. They felt so strange. "Good," she said. "How are those casualties?" She glanced toward the door that led to the sick bay.

Villaluz sighed. "Most of them are dead," he said. "Aged years in seconds. Some are too old, if I can put it that way, to fight, though a few hours ago they were young and fit. We're still trying to work out why the Zygma Cannon didn't turn Peking to dust like it did Brisbane."

"Maybe something interrupted Greel's fun," Kara spat.

There was a sudden loud noise, like some kind of an ancient engine, whining and wheezing, grinding and groaning. Slowly it faded in, getting louder and louder, and then something else faded in – not a sound, but an object. A large boulder slowly appeared in the room, at first ephemeral, almost ghostly, but after about a minute accompanied by that strange mechanical chorus it became quite solid. Then the oddest thing yet happened: it sort of melted, twisted out of shape and then finally settled down in a totally different shape. It looked like one of the metal storage cupboards it had materialised next to. Villaluz grabbed his gun and pointed it at the doors as they burst open.

"I didn't know that was going to happen!" shouted the first figure to emerge, sounding like he was trying to protest his innocence. He was short and rotund and wore the habit of an old clergyman of ancient history. "They must've fired off that damned thing again!"

Another man stepped out, this one tall and lean, neatly dressed head to toe in black and carrying one hell of a gun. "I thought you said you'd knackered the Zygma thing," the man in black said.

"He only sabotaged the Cabinet," said another voice from inside the cupboard. "The Zygma Experiments had fingers in rather a broad variety of pies, as it were. The Cabinet is a means of actual Time travel that the scientists in the laboratory you visited felt was close to completion. The Cannon is a weapon." The third man stepped out and Villaluz gawked. He pointed his gun straight between the Administrator Marshal's eyes.

Valentine jammed the barrel of his own gun into Villaluz's temple. "Put it down, Kale," he said firmly. "This isn't Salamander."

Suddenly Villaluz realised that the man in black was Valentine. In the gloom of the mine and wearing his disguise he'd looked rather different. He lowered his gun. "Then who?" he breathed in awe. "You look so... alike."

Valentine nodded. "Recruited for that reason," he said. "This is the Doctor."

"Aleks be praised," Villaluz gasped. "It's a miracle."

"Now now," said the Doctor. "Let's not have any of that nonsense here, shall we?" He stepped into the room proper from the Monk's TARDIS. "Well," he said, looking around. "This isn't the Citadel at Reykjavik, is it?" and he looked pointedly at Mortimus as Susan, Keri, Karl and the guards emerged from the metal cupboard.

Mortimus scowled at him. "I told you, they fired that bloody cannon thing again," he retorted. "Knocked me off course!"

Villaluz stepped up to the Doctor carefully. "Sir?" he asked sheepishly.

The Doctor glanced at him. "Hm?"

"This ship is heading for Reykjavik," Villaluz told him. "To attack the Citadel."

"Really?" the Doctor smiled mischievously. "Well, that's a rather handy coincidence, isn't it? We've probably only come off course by a couple of miles." He turned to face Villaluz properly. "And you are?"

"Kale Villaluz," Villaluz said. "Commander of the Filipino Army of the Faith."

"And where is your army?"

"Six hundred of us, that is six battalions, are here on this ship. More are travelling in other ships and in aircraft to attack major Alliance bastions around the globe. Objectives include knocking out communications systems and defences, and liberating Alliance prisoners to help fight our cause."

"That sounds like an excellent plan, Commander," said the Doctor. "One that I might be able to help you with." He leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially: "Do you think you could sneak me inside the Citadel before your attack?"

Villaluz shook his head. "I don't see how."

Valentine had been listening in. "I can," he said. "Why do you want to go in ahead, though? If these are going to blow it to bits then you'll be putting yourself under friendly fire."

"I know," the Doctor nodded. "But Salamander will be on the move by now. Psychopath he may be, but unfortunately a fool he isn't. He'll have found a way out of that mine and be on his way to his own aircraft, and from there he could radio the Citadel..."

"...and warn them that there could be a party of insurgents arriving soon with an axe to grind," Valentine concluded. "Put them on their guard."

"Exactly," concurred the Doctor. "And if I can get there before Salamander calls in, then I can prevent that radio call being heard." He looked up at Valentine with a serious expression. "Also, a couple of friends of mine will be inside the Citadel now, hard at work vandalising the main Zygma systems. I'll need to make sure they get safely away before this ship opens fire."

Villaluz interjected. "You won't have long, Doctor. We will be within attack range in maybe forty minutes."

"Can you lend me an hour?" the Doctor asked him.

"An hour might make all the difference," said Villaluz.

"One hour," the Doctor insisted. "That's all I ask. In that time I think I can get the defences down too, and that will make your attack all the easier."

Villaluz thought for a moment. "You have one hour, Doctor," he said finally. "The remaining forty minutes of our journey and a further twenty. Please make them count."

The Doctor looked around him. "Keri, you'll be joining me," he called.

"You got it," Keri called back.

"And someone else..." he said, glancing around the room.

Karl Nystrom stepped forward. "Me, Doctor. I can get you into any part of the Citadel as Karl Klass. Seeing you with me, no one would suspect a thing."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Right. Let's get started."

Kara Dagan stood up and shuffled over to the Doctor. "Please take me with you," she croaked.

"I'm not sure that would be a good idea, Miss..."

"Dagan. Kara Dagan. You work for Aleks Nystrom, right?"

"I don't work for anyone, Miss Dagan. I fight evil on my own terms wherever I find it."

"But you're involved with the Faith?"

"In a way."

"I used to be Aleks's lover. I used to be human." Kara glanced down at herself. "The Alliance did... this... to me."

The Doctor looked sickened. "I can understand why you would want your revenge," he said calmly. "But it wouldn't be wise to get it this way. If you go inside the Citadel you could be killed."

Kara let out a shrill shriek. "Then what do you suggest I do?" she snapped. "Sit here and just wait for you to fix everything?"

The Doctor looked at Mortimus. "Are you finished here?"

Mortimus shrugged. "I suppose," he said.

"Then clear off," the Doctor said simply. "Take this girl back to Helsinki and wait until the Zygma System shuts down, and then leave and don't come back."

"Oh, that's very nice, isn't it!" blustered Mortimus. "I reunite you with Susan, bugger up the Zygma Cabinet for you, almost give you a lift to Iceland and these are the thanks I get..."

"Oh, do be quiet," the Doctor said dismissively. He looked at Valentine. "Show me how to get into the Citadel."

Valentine reached into his coat and produced what looked like a handful of silver leaves. He grinned as he handed one to the Doctor. "Telepathically activated transmat chip," he said delightedly. "Little invention of mine. I dabble in these things."

The Doctor smiled happily at the little leaf. "Oh, that's very clever," he said.

"Thanks," said Valentine, passing a chip to Keri. "You know, you're quite a fine lady," he told her casually. "Do you like cheese?"

"Depends on the cheese," said Keri. "I'm not fond of cheesy chat-up lines."

Valentine shrugged. "Just being civil." He passed a leaf to Karl and then turned his attention back to the Doctor. "Now, we do have one slight hitch. There's an energy barrier surrounding the Citadel that blocks transmat beams. This means we can only 'mat as far as its external perimeter – basically the gates to the Citadel grounds. Naturally Keri and I can't materialise there because we don't have clearance and nobody knows us, but you and Karl could arrive there as Salamander and Klass and bluff your way in, then switch off the energy barrier so that Keri and I can 'mat to your location."

"Of course," the Doctor concurred.

"We'll make it first priority," added Karl. "Shall we start?"

Valentine put a finger to his temple and the Doctor and Karl evanesced.

As soon as they had gone, Susan slipped up behind Valentine. "Can you take me with you?" she asked him.

Valentine grimaced. "I doubt that would be at all sensible. When Salamander worked out who you were, he took advantage and made a liability of you. It's not a risk we can safely take."

"I am _not_ a liability," Susan hissed. "Besides, I didn't mean to join up with Grandfather and help with the bluff. I was thinking of helping those friends he mentioned with the sabotage of the Zygma System."

"Know a bit about Time tech, do you?"

"I'm an expert. I learned from the best."

Valentine let out a long breath and passed her a leaf. "All right. When we get the signal I'll 'mat myself and Keri to the Doctor's coordinates and you to the lab that Mortimus and I were in earlier. Best I can do."

Ten

**CAGAYAN DE ORO, Filipina Cluster AD5029**

The last charge pack on the blaster was running out. Salamander had always made sure he carried at least four recharges just in case of a crisis, but cutting through the lock on the rollway hatch had really pounded the three that he didn't practically burn out in his gunfight with Karl's traitor army. He was starting to worry that the last pack would give out before he broke through, or worse still that he'd just make it out and then be forced to defend himself outside with very little power in his gun and no recharges left. He thought for a moment. It was dark and it would take time, but there were a good few of Karl's men lying down on the cutting floor that he'd shot earlier, and he could take the charge packs out of their weapons. He'd insisted during his early days as Administrator Marshal that all high-energy weapons would have the same universally compatible charge packs. The ordered uniformity made him feel safe. Obviously that had been a good thing, because it meant down there in the mine was a repository of spare power sources for his gun. Barefoot he scrambled back down to the cutting floor and fumbled in the dark, the Doctor's rucksack over his shoulder. It hadn't yielded anything that could turn the tide of the impending revolution as he'd hoped, but at least it had held some moderately useful content. After about twenty minutes he tripped over a body. He fumbled for the guard's weapon, picked it up and emptied the magazine into his hand. The charge pack in his pocket, he stumbled off to find more. It took about an hour as far as he could make out, but he eventually found another four charge packs and stopped. He was too short of time to consider that amount unsatisfactory. Back up the rollway then and to the door, and after a few more minutes' blasting and another battery change he managed to get the lock to melt away. He had to wait for it to cool before he dared lift the hatch. A dangling blob of molten metal could do anything from scarring to killing should it fall from the hatch as he pushed it up. Another hour, maybe two, and he was out in the open, squinting in the sudden brilliant sunshine. There was no one out there waiting to ambush him. That idiot Karl had been complacent, thinking El Salamandra could be kept prisoner by a simple metal door and wouldn't find a way to escape. Now he could get to his plane and call the Citadel, put a stop to this before any real damage could be done. Quickly he put the rucksack on the ground and pulled off his oil-stained clothes, changing into clean ones. Then he ran down the hillside into which the mine had been set and along the small road to the private aerodrome. When he reached it he roared with rage so loudly that he might have been heard on the other islands. His plane lay in ruins, a burnt-out wreck split open with explosives and then finished off with incendiaries. Looking down at himself, Salamander realised there would only be one other chance. Quickly he ran into the hangar, hoping that the saboteurs had missed the emergency distress call radio.

**REYKJAVIK, Scandinavia Minor AD5029**

"What has the world – your world – come to when atrocities like that are not only allowed but called justice?" the Doctor asked Karl Nystrom quietly as he marched through the corridors leading to the Administrator Marshal's office. They had materialised, thanks to Valentine's transmat, on a small path a little way from the main gates of the Citadel and had to walk in. There were beasts chained up by their collars outside the massive concrete fortress, the chains physically sunk into the cement of the wall, snarling and snapping, swinging vicious claws out at anyone who passed by. There were mutations of every shape, every physiology, every deformity, all angry and vicious and mindless beyond their instinct to kill. These creatures, like that poor woman on the _Hvergelmir, _had been made like this as a 'punishment' for 'crimes' against the Alliance. The Doctor was sickened by it. "Who sanctions all this? Salamander?"

Karl shook his head. "The Ministers of Justice," he explained. "Judges, I suppose. Those whose word is Law here in the Alliance. Most of them hold courts processing various people accused of offences against the State or something. No one ever gets pronounced not guilty and there's a fair enough chance that there are quite a few who aren't guilty. And those who are guilty are only guilty of trying to gain a little freedom and quality of life for themselves and their families and friends."

"And whose idea was it to do that to them?"

"Oh, that was one of the ingenious proposals of Magnus Greel."

"Greel? I've heard that name."

"The Butcher of Brisbane, as people are now calling him," Karl nodded as he and the Doctor rounded a corner and he pulled open the doors to a stairwell. "He also put forward the idea of the Zygma Cannon and has been using it as his own little toy, 'punishing' larger insurgent communities with random acts of mass destruction."

The Doctor remembered something as he started to climb the stairs. "They mentioned him at the Faith," he said. "I think I was there when news reached Aleks that Brisbane had been destroyed. And he's in my briefing somewhere. I'm supposed to assassinate him." He was making it perfectly obvious that he intended to do no such thing if he could avoid it.

"Don't worry, Doctor..." Karl checked himself. "Administrator Marshal. One of us will."

At the top of the stairs, Karl pulled the doors open and almost tripped over a short, slim African woman coming in the other direction. She was wearing a long red silk dress, modest jewellery and far from modest makeup. Vivid bright blue eyeshadow stood out against her dark brown skin and pearl-black eyes. She blinked slowly as she nodded courteously first to Karl and then to the Doctor. "Minister Klass," she said. "I wasn't expecting you or the Marshal back so soon. But I'm glad you're here."

"Minister Yeboah," Karl acknowledged her aloud, making sure the Doctor would get the name. "Yes, there was nothing at the mine. A waste of time. What's the matter?"

Kyra Yeboah sidestepped Karl and discreetly curtseyed the Doctor. "Administrator Marshal, Magnus Greel has escaped his house arrest and is wreaking havoc. He has already used the Zygma Cannon again – this time on China, but with minimal effect. Something stopped the Cannon – it may have been me, because I damaged the apparatus. I am sorry."

Falling into character with stern face and Mexican accent, the Doctor stared hard at the young Minister. "You will be dealt with at the appropriate time, Minister Yeboah," he told her firmly. "Minister Klass and I will attend to the matter of Greel. You're dismissed."

"Dismissed, Marshal?"

"Go to your quarters and stay there until you are called."

"Am I under house arrest?"

Karl stepped in quickly. "No, Kyra. Not at all. You did right by trying to stop Greel, and none of us, even the Marshal, ever thought any good would ever come of that cannon. The Marshal just feels it's best that all Ministers retire to their quarters until Greel has been found and dealt with. We don't want anyone else put at risk."

Yeboah nodded. "A wise plan, Marshal," she smiled at the Doctor. "Should I tell the other Ministers I see to retire, then?"

"Yes," said the Doctor. "Make sure they all go home and stay there. The open Citadel is not safe, and not purely on account of Greel and that pet of his." He felt very satisfied on the inside for remembering about the Peking Homunculus from his briefing. "I take it that the Homunculus is still at large also?"

"Mr Sin is causing havoc as usual, Marshal," Yeboah confirmed.

"I thought as much. Minister Yeboah, I have reason to believe that the Peking Homunculus may be working for parties other than Greel. I think he may also be spying for the insurgents."

Yeboah was shocked. Her jaw dropped. "But he has the freedom of the Citadel! He's had it for years! He could know any number of secrets. What should we do?"

The Doctor made a decisive face. "Put the Citadel on communications lockdown," he ordered. "No transmissions allowed at all, in or out."

"That would mean our external scanners checking for approaching ships and planes would have to go down too, Marshal. We would be blinded, and there has been an alert about a possible incursion of the Filipino Army."

"I know. But the Filipino Army were last reported in China. I heard it on the reports log aboard my plane on the way here. You said the Zygma Cannon was fired on China."

"To minimal effect, Marshal."

"Even a minimal Zygma blast would age those soldiers significantly, Minister Yeboah. We are probably up against a small fishing boat full of white-haired curmudgeons." He gave an approximation of Salamander's cruel, cackling laugh. "I'm sure they won't be any trouble. Besides, we're at too great a risk to take any chances of further information leaking out. The rest of the insurgents scattered around the planet could be hearing from the Peking Homunculus at any moment. The Filipino Army, if it survived at all, knows nothing of our defences as far as we are aware, but the Scandinavian forces might pick their time for the final uprising based on specific information of our weak points. All communications must be closed."

Yeboah finally nodded. "Of course, Marshal. At once, Marshal." And she slipped past him and scurried down the stairs with a guard in tow.

Klass stepped aside to allow the Doctor through the doors. "That was pretty impressive," he said. "You had her completely fooled. She'll do exactly what you told her."

"Good," said the Doctor, himself again. "Let's get into the office and shut that forcefield down." He opened the door to the Administrator Marshal's office and found a gun pointing in his face.

"Hello, Doctor," said Salamander. "Close the door."

The Doctor was shocked. "How did you get here before us? You were stranded down a mine in Cagayan de Oro." He looked Salamander up and down. "And why are you wearing my clothes!"

Salamander scowled. "Not my first choice," he admitted. "I prefer something a little more elegant, but when I rummaged in the rucksack you left behind this was all there was, and my clothes were oil-stained."

Suddenly the Doctor registered something. Salamander's usually sleek hair was an untidy mop and he was speaking with a near-enough English accent. "You're trying to impersonate me!" he exclaimed. "The very nerve!"

"I'm playing you at your own game, Doctor," Salamander cackled. "Aleks Nystrom brought me here through the Zygma Tap because he thought I was you. It can't normally penetrate the forcefield because it's carried along a simple transmat beam, but I shut the forcefield down. I have the remote signal codes for it in case I'm trapped."

"A backup plan can have too many contingencies, you know," the Doctor chided him. But the forcefield was down and that was good. Karl would by now be discreetly sending his signal to Valentine.

"Never!" Salamander retorted. "You should always support a plan B with plans C-Z! Because you didn't prepare for every possibility, you and your rebel friends will lose everything."

"So where is Aleks?" asked the Doctor. "I would have thought he'd come for his last taste of vengeance before he dies. Or is he already dead?"

"Aleks is leading his people through the Citadel walkways with orders to attack key positions," Salamander explained. "I have guards waiting at every junction of their route with orders to kill them."

Aleks Nystrom rose up from where he had been crouching silently behind Salamander's chair having doubled back and slipped back into the room via the ventilation shaft. He had mistrusted his returning 'Doctor' from the moment his rescue party had brought him back from the Philippines. He rammed a pistol into Salamander's back. "The Promise," he croaked, blind eyes rolling wildly in every direction. "I knew you would be delivered to me."

Salamander's dead body collapsed over his desk.

The Doctor stared down at the corpse. "I shall have to replace that coat and shirt," he said, somewhat disgruntled. "Aleks, what about your people? There are guards waiting to kill them."

Aleks smiled, a grin of absolute insanity. The insanity that came from knowing absolutely everything. "Karl, my dear brother..."

"The guards are all working for me, Doctor," Karl smiled. "They'll join the rebels rather than killing them. Should be havoc out there about now." He looked at Aleks. "You're finished, old man. I'm sorry. The Zygma Beam's had you."

"I know," whispered Aleks. "I always knew. I always will know. It... is... Time." And he collapsed onto Salamander's back, becoming in a matter of seconds a greying skeleton.

Karl brushed a tear from his eye. "We're not finished," he said.

"Bloody right, we're not," grinned Valentine from behind him.

With Mr Sin under his arm, Magnus Greel dashed through the corridors dodging fire from the guards-turned-rebels and rebels chasing him. He fought for breath, but he was becoming very quickly exhausted. If he didn't make it to the Zygma Cabinet soon he'd have no hope. His only chance to escape the wrath of the victorious insurgents would be to get himself to another time where his crimes were unheard of. He ran down a ramp and around a corner and finally barged through the laboratory doors. "The insurgents are taking over!" he bellowed at the scientists. "Get out of here if you want to live."

Hurriedly the scientists made an exit. Only two men and a woman remained, and they didn't look like Alliance people. They were inspecting the Zygma Cabinet. Quickly Greel took out a gun. "Get away from that machine!" he growled.

Susan looked up. "Aspirodor!" she cried.

Aspirodor whirled round, going for his gun. Greel cut him down. "Get away from it!" Greel demanded again.

Susan and Jamie rushed to Aspirodor's side. Greel pulled the trionic lattice from his cloak and made for the Cabinet.

"Stop!" a voice shrilled. "Or I'll fire!"

Greel locked the crystal key into its socket and turned to face the young girl. "Fire then," he snapped. "If you really have the nerve."

"Victoria!" snapped another woman. "Kill him!"

Victoria couldn't do it.

Greel shut himself and Mr Sin in the Zygma Cabinet. A loud hum filled the room and a brilliant white halo surrounded the Chinese-styled box. Suddenly the hum was eclipsed by an agonised scream that came from inside the box and seemed to fade along with it.

_**Epilogue**_

**THE MASTER** left 1937 as soon as Time became viable for his TARDIS again. He would not return to Earth until the 1970s.

**THE RANI** failed her attempt to use Scavenger VII as a nuclear explosive to destroy the Citadel when Carly Rainier found out what she was up to, but managed to escape in her TARDIS thanks to her Statenheim remote control.

**MORTIMUS "THE MEDDLING MONK"** saw the Filipino Army as far as the Citadel and then left swiftly in order to avoid having to pay Valentine.

**ASPIRODOR** died, but with his dying breath he bequeathed his TARDIS to **Susan**, who used it to return to the twenty-second century and placed it in storage in case she should ever need it.

**KARL NYSTROM** married Kyra Yeboah, retired after the war made him weary and took up a job in public service.

**ISGAARD NYSTROM** federated the planet Earth and gave each nation its own leader, setting the standard for a new age of global prosperity.

**VALENTINE** returned to Finland after the war to retire on the fortune he had made from trading his knowledge of advanced weapons. The Doctor will meet him again in the future.

**KERTTU "KERI" KALONEN** married Valentine in 5032 and helped to rebuild the clergy. The congregation on the opening day of the New Lutheran Church exceeded seven million.

**VICTORIA WATERFIELD** left the Doctor after one more adventure, never admitting how deeply the horrors of war had internally damaged her.

**THE DOCTOR, **following a couple of regenerations, finally carried out Aleks's mission statement and assassinated Magnus Greel at the end of the nineteenth century. He also destroyed Mr Sin and brought a final end to the Zygma experiment.

_**THE END**_


End file.
